


Deadfall

by vellaphoria



Series: a bird in the hand [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Abuse of Philosophical Concepts, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Halucinations, Lazarus Pits, Manipulation, Mind Games, Multi, Nightmares, Ra's Being Creepy, Temporary Character Death, Trauma, after Red Robin #8, with slight continuity changes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2018-12-11 05:16:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 68,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11707563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vellaphoria/pseuds/vellaphoria
Summary: Bruce’s death fractured Gotham's vigilantes, even as it brought some of them together. Despite Dick’s progress with Jason and Damian, Tim is still in the wind, somewhere overseas getting involved with who knows what in a desperate attempt to prove Bruce is alive. An attempt that goes horribly, catastrophically wrong, destroying most of the League of Assassins’ global infrastructure and taking Tim with it.But something feels off. Say his Batman sense is tingling, but DickknowsTim’s apparent death can’t be as simple as a botched mission.When Ra’s al Ghul gets involved, it never is.





	1. Lacuna

This is the kind of thing Batman has to know about before it happens.

Dick should have seen it coming. Bruce  _would_  have seen it coming.

The Tower’s front-end security tactfully ignores him storming past, a copy of the Gotham Gazette crumpling in his hand. His footsteps slice the early morning light, casting a shadow on the gilded W of the lobby’s floor.

It feels too wide; too open. Nothing like the city’s nighttime rooftops and their overabundance of shadows. Over the years, Dick’s public persona turned into a performance like any other, and though he had been _born_ a performer, for once in his life he doesn’t feel up to the task.

And for this to happen so soon after Bruce –

Eyes track his path from the building’s entrance to the elevator, scorching small, laser-focused holes in his back. His only saving grace is the severity of his expression and the quickness of his pace. Kory told him once that his anger burns hot and fast, and that it’s so incongruous with his lighter moods that he sometimes makes others nervous.

Maybe there’s some truth to that, because the paparazzi and the fawning socialites clogging Wayne Enterprises’ lobby take one look at him and suddenly find someone else to bother. No one tries to muscle into his space in hopes of scoring a one-on-one talk with the company’s interim CEO.

It’s for the best; he isn’t sure _what_ he’d do if he had to play nice while trapped in an enclosed space.

Dick jabs at the elevator’s call button with a viciousness he doesn’t often feel outside of Kevlar, trying to ignore how much he’d rather (disturbingly) be in the cowl right now.

The doors open with a short, bright _ding_ that sets him on edge more than anything, but he schools his expression into something slightly less newsworthy as he steps inside and turns to face the closing door. Too little, too late, maybe – but he can only hope his walk through the lobby hasn’t been captured on _too_ many cameras.

Right now, the last thing he needs is  _another_  Vicki Vale front page special prying into the series of crises that make up their lives.

The doors hiss closed, but the button for the penthouse remains untouched – Damian _really_ shouldn’t see him like this – in favor of the one that will take him to the Tower’s third-highest floor. He pushes it, glaring into the elevator’s discreet rental scanner until it beeps, confirming his security clearance.

The engineering is good enough that he barely feels it when the elevator skyrockets upward. It’s fast enough that the climb takes almost no time at all, but Dick still feels like he’s fidgeting out of his own skin when the elevator finally slows to a halt.

He’s past the doors before they’re fully retracted. Gotham’s dull, foggy morning pours through wide glass windows, illuminating the hallway’s bright, impersonal décor.

Dick doesn’t spare it a second glance; he marches straight down the hall, footsteps loud and echoing in direct violation of office etiquette, until he reaches the last office on the right.

The door is already open.

Piles of paperwork waver, tilting almost to the point of falling off the desk when Dick throws the newspaper down with more force than strictly necessary.

To Lucius’ credit, he barely reacts to the interruption. Dick wonders if he is simply focused, or if his patience is born of too many years weathering Bruce’s – and Batman’s – moods.

But he doesn’t have long to contemplate that, his impulsiveness kicking in at exactly the wrong time. Trade his suit and tie for spandex, and he’ll leap off buildings without a second thought, throwing his body to the mercy of gravity with only his own ability between him and the ground. His mouth doesn’t seem to care _what_ he’s wearing, though, and Dick is halfway to shouting before his brain can catch up with the rest of him.

“How could you  _possibly_  have thought this was a good idea?” His usual calm baritone is strained with something he doesn’t want to identify. Dick is sure his face reflects the same. At least it won’t end up on the evening news; there are no squabbling reporters here for him to worry about.

Only one of Bruce’s most trusted confidants and the man who’s technological advancements are pivotal to their entire nighttime operation.

Lucius levels Dick with his flattest glare before staring down at the newspaper now dominating his workspace. The headline ‘Explosion! Daughter of Wayne Enterprises COO Pulled from Overseas Wreckage’ stares up at them damningly, but it’s the subheading ‘Adoptive Wayne Son Still Missing; A Repeat of Family Tragedy?’ that Dick can’t tear his eyes from.

“He’s out there  _alone_ , on some wild goose chase, and when you figure out where he is, you decide it’s a better idea send in someone from outside the business – someone who could have gotten  _killed_ – instead of, I don’t know, telling me so I could _do something about it?_ ”

Dick’s hands clench and unclench in loose fists. He can feel his nails gouging crescent-shaped redness into the meat of his palms

Lucius’ expression doesn’t change, and the severity of it almost enough to make Dick want to apologize for his tone. Almost.

“Tamara  _is_  part of the business.,” he says. Even without looking at the screen, tightly controlled keystrokes punctuate Lucius’ words. “She works for Wayne Enterprises, and I needed Tim Drake _for_ Wayne Enterprises. Unless you’ve changed your mind about permanently becoming CEO?”

Well… he hasn’t. But…

“And if I recall,” Lucius continues. He sounds as deeply unimpressed with Dick as he looks. “The last time you tried to talk to Tim didn’t exactly go as planned. In fact, it was _highly_ counterproductive.”

He pauses, flipping through a stack of papers on the right corner of his desk for some form or report that Dick wouldn’t know the first thing about interpreting.

“What makes you think that sending you after him would have produced better results this time?”

His mind flashes to the cliff. The fight just beyond city limits, nearly a year ago today. The sound of a motorcycle tearing away down the interstate, away from Gotham. Away from _Dick_.

They are not productive thoughts.

Dick runs a hand through his hair, leaving it almost as disheveled as the suit he’d thrown on under his jacket. “I just. I don’t know, ok? But he needs _help_ and–”

“Dick,” Lucius interrupts him. Victor Fries has nothing on the ice in that stare. “Bruce was _very_ clear about who was to be made CEO in case of his… disappearance. If I had been informed that Tim wasn’t  _just_ taking an overseas sabbatical in the wake of his father’s death, then perhaps I would have mentioned something.”

“Sure, but –”

“Do you think I wouldn’t have let you handle it if I thought it would keep  _my daughter_ out of the line of fire?”

Dick winces; he deserves that one.

He hadn’t actually considered that Bruce would name Tim CEO if anything happened to him, or that Lucius would take such drastic measures to adhere to such a contingency measure. Over the last year, Dick had realized that he hadn’t ever thought they’d _need_ one.

With Hush playing fast and loose with Bruce’s money, it had just seemed easier to have him disappear and tell Gotham that one of its most eccentric billionaires had just gone on another spontaneous overseas trip.

Better than saying he’d gone to a farm upstate, at least.

The excuse would buy them time; enough of it for Tim to come back and take the position from Dick. Or for him to pass it on to Lucius if Tim wasn’t interested.

But Tim wasn’t just AWOL – he was _missing_ , and whatever he had gotten himself into while trying to prove Bruce wasn’t dead had nearly gotten Lucius’ daughter blown up.

He can almost hear Jason laughing at him over the mess he’s worked his way into. A comedy of errors, he might call it. And he wouldn’t be wrong; the oversight of not telling Lucius about Tim wasn’t one of his brighter moments. The danger that had put Tamara in was inexcusable. But none of that changed the fact that she is _in Gotham_ , and  _safe_  instead of… wherever Tim is, right now.

Lucius sighs. “Look. Talk to Tam. She doesn’t need me to tell her not to go anywhere near the press, but she needs–”

“Does she know where Tim is?” Dick asks, cutting him off. It sounds more like a demand than a question.

“Just,” Lucius pauses, pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers and lets out a tense breath, “Talk to her. There are things you need to hear from someone who was there. And she won’t admit it, but she should probably talk to someone too.”

And isn’t that just comforting.

“Where –”

“Tim’s place on 57th. This time, remember to knock.”

Dick runs the calculations; the address is close to Wayne Tower; twenty minutes by car, five by grappling hook. From what he remembers, it’s a penthouse apartment with roof access and so much security that it just _screams_ contingency.

That, and Tim setting her up in a legitimate safe house instead of an actual apartment, says a lot about what they were doing overseas. If the explosion hadn’t made that abundantly clear already.

He’s almost out the office’s door when the sound of expectant silence – no keystrokes or rustling paperwork – forces him to turn back around and meet Lucius’ eyes.

“And, Dick? Listen everything she has to say before you do anything… impulsive.”

Impulsive like running off to the other side of the world in some desperate hope that Bruce Wayne is alive? Like Tim holding a bo staff to Dick’s throat and telling him in no uncertain terms that he was leaving whether Dick liked it or not? There’s a thin line between going your own way and ending up on a pointless, self-destructive path.

When it was his turn to leave the nest, Dick went to Blüdhaven. He created Nightwing with Clark’s blessing and became his own man. This is different. Tim disappearing to the other side of the world without a word about where he’s going? Picking up one of Jason’s former mantles, especially one from when their brother was deep in the Lazarus Pit’s influence? One that still has Robin in the name?

None of those are good signs of what Tim was thinking at the time. And the sporadic, too old reports coming into Gotham of someone in the Red Robin costume breaking into a national heritage site in Mexico, being implicated in a museum robbery in Germany, and blowing up vehicles and buildings  _with_   _people still inside them_ in France? There’s no telling where his head at is right now, but Dick’s money is on it being nowhere good.

No network, no support if he needs it, and no way for Dick to know where the former Robin is going, even as he desperately collects any news he can find of his whereabouts.

No way to bring him home.

His fingers itch for a grapple gun, but the light slanting through the windows in the hallway tells him that it’s way to early (or too late) for Dick to avoid that car ride and getting stuck with nothing but his thoughts in the hell that is Gotham traffic.

“Fine.” Dick says, sighing long and loud as he steps out of Lucius’ office and back into the hallway.

It’s going to be a long twenty minutes.

 

**…**

Of all the things Tim could have been doing overseas, all the ways he could have been searching for something, anything, to prove he was right? That he wasn’t clinging to a ghost?

This is not where he expected the conversation to go when the safe house door opened to a flustered, sleep-deprived Tamara Fox. Even as she sits on one of Tim’s overstuffed couches, clutching nervously at the mug curled between her fingers, her eyes are were tight with anxiety. She’s covered in cuts and bruises. She looks like she’s been through a warzone.

Maybe she has.

And Dick _understands_ that. It’s a hard business, but it’s harder when you’re just thrown into it without any warning. When you go to collect the errant, would-be CEO of your father’s company and find out the hard way what his night job is.

So, yes, Dick knows that she’s been through a lot, and he tries to respect that, but when he finally talks Tam around to telling him what Tim was doing halfway across the world, Dick’s general inclination to tiptoe around her trauma nosedives straight out the thirty-second story window.

He nearly spits out his coffee, too.

“I’m sorry, _what,_ ” Dick splutters, “Tim was working for _who?_ ”

Tam looks like she wants to flinch back at the volume of his voice, but she holds her ground.

“I don’t know? It sounded Arabic – but not like, _real_ Arabic. More like, badly done, movie villain Arabic. And he had a bunch of ninjas for some reason? I have no idea why – Tim said he was also in charge of a League of Assassins or something…” She pauses, replacing her mug on the table in favor of wringing her hands. “That _can’t_ be real, right? It sounds like something straight off of those Batman-sighting forums.”

Dick sighs, rubbing his temple in a futile attempt to stave off the building headache. “It’s real. And, yeah, it’s stupid, but it’s real – we just ignore the ninjas, usually… look, Tam. I know Tim thinks he has something to prove, but that seems to be taking it a bit far, even for him. Normally I wouldn’t ask, you’re sure it was them?”

Tam squints at him. “Did you say _we?_ ”

Dick stares. Exactly how much did Lucius leave for him to explain?

“No.” Tam shifts back almost unconsciously. “ _No._ Seriously? He was wearing a _costume_ , but I thought it was just – _oh my god_. What the _fuck_ –”

“Welcome to the family business.” Dick’s smile is humorless, almost self-deprecating.

“Jesus Christ,” Tam says, barely above a whisper, “Who _are_ you people?”

Oh boy.

In completely different circumstances, this would be the perfect place to growl _I’m Batman_ just to see what unprompted meme use would do to the atmosphere.

In different circumstances, Dick wouldn’t be strung out worrying about his little brother and wondering exactly how many of Bruce’s _on pain of death_ secrets he has to divulge to get her cooperation.

“Did Tim or your dad tell you… anything?” He tries to hide his concern behind a cough. Even to him, it’s unconvincing.

“Um, _no_. I literally just got off the plane last night, after…” Tam trails off, staring out into the distance. The edges of her eyes go watery, but she chokes back whatever might be trying to work its way out of her.

“Ok,” Dick says, placating, “why don’t you start from the beginning. Tell me what happened, and I’ll answer whatever questions I can. I’m here to help you through this, Tam.”

It… works. Somehow.

Tam breathes deeply, centering herself. The coffee finds its way back into her hands, and she slumps against the couch, more resigned than anything.

“It’s like I said,” she starts, sighing, “I- I opened the door to my hotel room and he was just  _there._  Some woman was with him – her throat looked like it’d been cut. He was wearing that costume, and it looked like someone had  _impaled_  him.”

Dick has already heard this part of it. It would be more helpful if she could say _where_ he was impaled, but now wasn’t the right moment to push.

“There was blood. A lot of it. More than I think I’ve ever seen in my life. It was soaking into the sheets and the carpet and everything. I was going to dial emergency services or  _something_ , but then, well. That’s when the assassins showed up. The one who was in charge – Ghost, or something? – just started barking out orders. Then a bag gets thrown over my head and I’m being shoved into some sort of helicopter. I must have passed out or been knocked out or  _something_  because the next thing I know, I’m in a cell that looks like it’s in a  _cave_ , surrounded by ninjas with Tim nowhere in sight.” Tam’s head drops into her hands, the stress of reliving all of this catching up with her.

Her voice comes out strained, like someone has a stranglehold on her throat. She whispers, “Is this really what you do on a daily basis? How are any of you _still alive_?”

It really,  _really_  isn’t the time to get into that.

“What happened to Tim?” Dick asks, instead of answering.

Long past her reticence, the words come pouring out, “Eventually, they brought me out to him. For a second I thought they’d drugged me, or something, because – it was the weirdest thing – the lower levels of the cave system were filled with these freaky green pools. Like, boiling, radioactive green. Tim looked like he’d been fighting the ninja next to them and –”

 _No._ A weight like a stone drops in Dick’s gut.  _No, no, no, no…_

He cuts her off. “Tam. This is important. Did you see – do you know if he was put in one of the… pools?” His heart is in his throat.

For a long, tense second, Tam says nothing at all.

“No. No, I don’t think so. That ghost guy said something about a surgery – he lost his spleen, but it was healing ok and the green stuff wasn’t necessary. What was it? Some sort of medical thing? Tim seemed relieved that he hadn’t been in it… and, honestly, so do you.”

His  _spleen_ …!

She isn’t wrong though. One person dealing with occasional episodes of Pit-madness is more than enough for him to deal with.

Dick tries to collect himself, feeling the smallest hint of relief that at least they wouldn’t be dealing with _that_.

“They’re a bit hard to explain. The short version is that someone who goes in doesn’t always come back out the same way. They tend to… lose things. Or pick them up. It isn’t pretty, so it’s good – a really good thing that Tim made it without that sort of intervention.”

Tam flinches. Hard. “He didn’t… um.” She’s choking up a little.

_No._

“He. He said –” Her eyes look watery. She was working up to this.

_Oh god._

Tam’s voice is barely a whisper, “I thought I was going to die, but he came  _back_. He saved me, fought off all those spider guys and pulled me away from them, into the command center. He had some sort of protocol on the computers. He – he said, ‘I’ll be right behind you.’ And sent me to the upper levels with his grapple gun. I thought he had another, or some other way to…”

She won’t meet his eyes. Hers are starting to spill over.

“The cave… collapsed behind me. In the explosion. He didn’t really explain it, but I think those explosions all over the news – the ones that went off simultaneously? That was him, but, when rescue crews showed up, they said there was no way… that the cave in–” Tam is shaking, coffee abandoned and arms wrapped around herself like any number of civilians left behind in the wake of Gotham’s disasters. “I told them that I work for WE, and they sent me to the airport. They wouldn’t let me stay long enough to – to see what happened. If he was…”

Everything feels numb. There are details here he’s missing. Things he needs to know to understand how,  _why_ , all of this went down. But all of it is secondary; nothing next to the prospect that Tim is buried under two tons of rock that used to be a League base.

“Where.” His voice is deadly quiet, even outside the cowl.

“I, um. Outside of Istanbul. Turkey. They called it The Cradle, or something. It’s…”

Suddenly, Tam is off the couch and walking across the room towards a suitcase leaning against the far wall. The zipper is torn open with excessive speed and force. Clothes and a couple of travel-sized toiletries end up in piles on the floor around Tam as she digs through its contents.

She’s nearly at the bottom when she pulls something out, practically throwing it at Dick like it’ll burn her if she grips it for too long.

His hand snaps out to catch it.

It’s a flash drive, dark and inconspicuous. Fits easily in the palm of his hand.

Tam seems to have blinked most of the tears from her eyes, shuffling back to the couch and slipping into a detached tone of voice.

“I should have known something was up when he asked me to hold on to it. He said it was just for safekeeping, that I should just make sure it wasn’t damaged when we fought our way out, but…”

Dick barely hears her, eyes glued to the drive like it could stop any of this from happening. Could have stopped.

( _You said we’d be okay… I don’t call this_ okay _Dick. This is all I have now._ )

“The signs were there. It – it was my minor in college. Psychology is important in business, you know? The whole time I was with him, he was withdrawn, obsessive. And I figured that might just be what Tim’s like when he isn’t in front of the cameras, but after he gave me that flash drive before the final fight… it was like something closed off in him. Behind his eyes. It was _right there_ and I didn’t see it happening. I let him send me away…”

( _You have to let me go_.)

“You did everything you could have.”  _You could have_   _stayed_ , the small, irrational part of his brain hisses, even though if she had he never would have heard any of this. “Tim is… was stubborn, always has been. Once he had his mind set on something it was never easy to talk him out of it.”

You could have made him leave The Cradle  _with_ you so he didn’t lose himself to his demons. You could have looked him in the eye and told him without a doubt that you would stand beside him and face your enemies  _together_.

He doesn’t miss the irony that Tamara Fox believed Tim, trusted him to know what he was doing in the exact way that Dick hadn’t, and if either of them had made different judgment calls, Tim might be here, in Gotham. Might be  _alive_.

Close enough where he could  _help_  Tim when things like this happen, where he could have been fighting by Dick’s side like he should have been this entire time. Where he _belongs._  

When he’d given Robin to Damian, he had called Tim his closest ally, his equal. Where would they be if he’d acted like he believed it?

There’s one more thing he needs to know from Tam. A piece of this puzzle she may have, and he wishes he didn’t have to ask when she looks so despondent.

“Did Tim ever mention  _why_  he was working with the League? What they wanted with him?”

Tam looks up at him through damp lashes.

It’s a long, tense moment before she speaks.

“He said that he was looking for proof that Bruce Wayne wasn’t dead. That’s crazy, right? The papers all seem to think he’s somewhere overseas…? But Tim said that the guy with the movie villain name believed him. That he was helping Tim because of it, even though he was one of the bad guys.”

Tam stops talking, stares into the distance like she’s deciding if she should say more. Dick isn’t sure if he wants her to.

Her hands twist together, skin pulling on skin, when she continues, “We never really met him though, or at least  _I_ didn’t. Tim spent a lot of time talking to him through a communicator. I couldn’t always hear both sides of the conversation, but when I could, it was a bit weird, like there were some seriously creepy vibes coming off the guy. Maybe that’s just a job requirement for being in charge of a bunch of assassins, though.”

And that’s… well. If she’s describing Ra’s al Ghul – and he has a bad feeling that’s  _exactly_  who was behind this – the situation just got about ten times more complicated. It also means Dick has a lot of investigating to work through. Maybe so much of it that he doesn’t have to think about the implications of any of this for a good, long while.

When Bruce died, it was the casework and Tim that kept Dick mostly sane.

This time, the casework will have to be enough.

He stands from the couch, holds his hand out to where Tam is curled in on herself.

She takes it. Everyone  _does_  tell him he gives the best hugs.

His arms wrap around her; hollow comfort. “I need to look at this flash drive,” he says into her hair, squeezing tighter when her breath shudders and breaks. “I know it’s a lot to take in and you didn’t know him long, but, thank you. For bringing me this, and for staying with him through everything.”

The same uncharitable little voice in his head whispers:  _everything except the end_.

He keeps it to himself. What Tam doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

A shiver crawls down Dick’s spine as he realizes how Bruce-like that sounds.

Tam’s voice is muffled from where she’s pressed against his shoulder. “If there’s anything, any chance… please. I need to know. I can’t –”

“Of course. It isn’t… definitive, what happened. If I find anything, you’ll know.”

Only the slight tremor at the end betrays his calm tone.

Dick asks for a pen and something to write on. These kinds of things tend to need help to work through, especially for someone who isn’t kidnapped by costumed maniacs on a weekly basis. Though it does help if whoever is doing the helping has experience with teaching healthy coping mechanisms  _and_ Gotham’s specific brand of nightlife.

Tam will have questions; the ones he avoided answering, and the ones she hasn’t thought of yet. He’ll let Dinah know ahead of time to expect a call.

Tam puts the notepad to the side with a promise to use the number when she feels ready. It’s dismissal enough, and Dick isn’t sure if the walk away from her feels more like he’s headed to the gallows or away from them.

His feet feel like lead dragging against the safe house’s rug. By the time he reaches the door, he has to remind himself not to lean into it and let something else hold the weight of all this for just a little while. There will be time for that later, though, when this is over. One way or another.

He reaches for the knob, turning it quietly and shutting the door behind him.

The flash drive is burning a hole in his other hand, but he can’t bear to let go of it just in case something happens.

It’s almost torture knowing that he can’t do anything about it until he gets back to the Bunker. Or knowing that the cape and a grapple gun would be great right about now.

 

**…**

Considering who sent it, the USB is nondescript; small and dark with enough data storage to house half the Library of Congress.

Tim has probably built better ones in his sleep.

Still. Tam said it was for Dick’s eyes only, and it’s from  _Tim_ , so there aren’t many forces on the planet (or really, in the universe) that could stop Dick from putting all the Bunker computer’s in-progress analyses on hold and settling in for the long haul. 

Which turns out to be about three minutes, because the second he’s done with the drive’s initial  _read me_  file, he’s across the room and halfway in the suit.

Coordinates, Tam had said.

Dick has never been good at sitting still.

Bruce would tell him to be patient; to calm down and read through the rest of the drive. To know what he’s getting into before committing to a course of action.

Bruce is dead.

But.

Dick has always hated it when movies hinge on strife caused by someone disappearing without explanation. It makes him want to throw popcorn at the screen and yell at the characters for their stupidity because  _maybe you wouldn’t have caused so many problems if you’d just talked it out first._  

(Maybe they would have talked it out if he’d at least  _asked_  before giving that suit to Damian) 

He has to suppress a cringe when he leaves the single sheet of printer paper sitting on the main console’s desk. Dick wants to explain everything, but there isn’t enough time – or, really, enough space on the paper – to talk himself into giving a satisfactory explanation of what’s happen to Tim. Or of his part in it.

So he makes the appropriate calls and leaves it at ‘Time sensitive case, headed overseas. Check in is in 36 hours. O’s Birds are running patrols tonight, have her contact me in case of emergency.’

Barbara is reliable like that; she’s willing to defer payment on a coherent explanation until she knows Dick can sort out whatever he’s gotten himself into. And if this disrupts the Birds’ schedule too much, she’ll be happy to take his debt in the form of Dick’s suffering. With interest.

Dick thinks it’s a little sad that that’s the most comforting thing about all of this.

Damian will find the note when he returns from school, if Alfred doesn’t inform him first. Robin isn’t currently authorized to patrol solo and the Birds won’t put up with him, so he’s probably going to come back to a report about the kid sneaking out alone and getting caught by Black Canary.

Or, as Babs will call it, compound interest.

Not to mention how angry Damian is going to be with him for leaving without prior notice.

Just a note on the desk and no trace of where the hell he’s gone. His internal Robin is screaming in frustration because this is  _exactly_  the kind of thing that chased Dick off to Blüdhaven in the first place.

He  _wants_  to drag Damian (willingly, no doubt) out of Gotham Academy for a joint mission. Wants to tell him to suit up and prep the Batwing or whatever the hell will get them to Turkey fastest. Wants to look past Dami’s… feelings about Tim because finding out what happened to their brother is more important.

But he made a promise to Bruce; the kid would be trained  _and_  get something resembling a normal childhood. Barring a full-scale attack on Gotham, getting him out of school for the day is not an option. And he doesn’t have time to wait for the last bell.

Besides, he isn’t sure it’s possible to keep Damian in check on a recon mission to a League base  _and_  stop him from saying anything about Tim that would set Dick off if ( _when_ ) the whole thing goes south.

So, yes. Leaving a vague, under-explained note and essentially going off grid for the next day and a half even when he  _knows_  it’s going to make things even worse for their team dynamics.

Unfortunately, it sort of comes with the territory. Like it or not, he’s  _the goddamn Batman_  now, and he has a lost bird to find.

Dick rips the drive out of the computer without ejecting it first. He laughs without humor when his kneejerk thought is that Tim would probably kill him for it.

At least they’d be even.

He pulls the cowl up, letting its weight lock into place with the rest of the uniform. Feels it settle on him uncomfortably like a second skin.

The doors to the hangar bay access tunnel snap shut on an empty room and an insufficient note.

Batman is gone long before anyone will be in the Bunker to notice.

 

**…**

**Outside of Istanbul - The Cradle, 18 hours earlier:**

The still-distant chain of explosions is deafening, but the look on Vitoria’s face is so,  _so_  worth it.

More so when the blast door slams closed on the Spiders with a damning thud.

Behind him, a string of zeroes flash in red on the console’s monitor. Only one tile – a single countdown – still running down.

She calls herself ‘The Wanderer?’ Lets see her wander out of this.

( _Ten_ )

Somewhere above him, Tam should be finding her way out of the facility and away from the blast zone.  _Run_ , he’d told her with all the urgency of a vigilante who  _is not fucking around_.

It’s up to her to follow instructions; the rest of it is reduced to factors within his control. For example, calculating the exact angle the grapple would need to get Tam to the upper level exits  _and_  silencing any protest with ‘ _I’ll be right behind you_ ’? Easy.

( _Nine_ )

The look on the second White Ghost’s  _face_  when he realizes Red Robin was going to blow The Cradle sky high? Hilarious.

Finally putting an end to the Spiders, the League, and all of this bullshit? Priceless 

God, he sounds like Dick.

(And that’s not the thought he wants to be having right now, so.)

( _Eight_ )

Take down the bad guys. Save the girl. Prevent any and all possible repercussions.

Red Robin looks back at the control center’s monitors.

Cairo. Vienna. St. Petersburg. Hundreds of bases across the world in more cities than Robin (Red or otherwise) has actually been to; the physical manifestation of Ra’s' influence.

All of it: ashes.

Ra’s' assassins will be picking up what’s left of their organization for _months_. Sorting through the wreckage of whatever Red Robin’s contingencies left standing.

And, somewhere, Ra’s al Ghul is watching.

( _Seven_ )

Pru’s already gone. She trusted him enough to leave with a single warning and,  _huh, isn’t that something_.

Conversely, the second, downgraded White Ghost is busy trying to bypass the door. He won’t make it in time. He won’t make it at all unless he manages to get under something strong enough to resist the blast and resulting collapse of the cave.

The Cradle is about to literally come crashing down around them.

The room’s single undamaged camera ( _Ra’s_ ) stares back accusingly, but Red’s smile is savage and small as the margin of error between sacrifice and Pyrrhic victory.

( _Six_ )

Destroy the League’s architecture. Put the Council of Spiders out of commission.

Remove the target of Ra’s ire.

( _What are you doing, Redbird?_  Winning, Vitoria.)

( _Five_ )

Because Red Robin knows, as sure as Batman needs a (real) Robin, that there would be vengeance for this. That Ra’s would come crashing down on him with the fury of an immortal madman hell bent on the concept of  _an eye for an eye_. That he would leave Tim standing just long enough to watch everyone he loves die. Everyone who’s left. But –

There’s a reason he didn’t tell anyone in Gotham about this. About the League. About Ra’s. Why he sent Tam with that flash drive carrying  _proof_ that Bruce is alive – just enough to get them started – and didn’t say a thing about his deal with a demon.

Because who would Ra’s gloat to? The Demon’s Head gives zero fucks about Tamara Fox, and no one in Gotham is going to know enough to make revenge worth it.

Red Robin certainly won’t be there for him to torture.

( _Four_ )

So, in the end, the decision is easy. Save his friends, save his family.

His opening and closing gambit; sacrifice one for the sake of the many.

No one else has to die.

( _Three_ )

Not again.

The White Ghost has managed to get behind  _something_  that has at least a chance of saving him.

The banging on the blast door has stopped; the Spiders have bigger problems to deal with.

( _Two_ )

There are ten immediate ways that Red Robin could avoid the worst of this. Ten things to hide behind, or under, to shield him from being crushed by the weight of his contingencies.

They are unimportant.

( _One_ )

Red Robin closes his eyes and all he can see is blue. It’s a false positive, but.

Behind the whiteouts, behind his eyelids, he sees blue like finger stripes, like that off-brand frosting Bart always stashed in the mission supplies. Like his Dad’s eyes on an archeological dig.

Blue like the Kansas sky pressing down on a grave holding half of Tim’s heart.

( _Zero_ )

And then he sees nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for additional warnings and tags that may be considered spoilers, given on a chapter relevance basis:
> 
> ...  
> ...  
> ...
> 
> Character death (temporary), suicidal tendencies, referenced past character death, taking Tim's series of traumas and making them worse
> 
> Update: Chapter has been overhauled as of April 26, 2018. So if you see something different, that's why. Watch me introduce new and horrifying grammatical errors lmao.
> 
> Update V.2: a commenter pointed out some timeline inconsistencies - they have since been fixed. And the fic was slightly re-ordered, but no real substantive changes have been made other than some timeline compression in Gotham. So, if you're re-reading this and you see something different, well, you know how this works. 
> 
> That said, if you see something weird or want to offer constructive criticism (emphasis on constructive), give me a shoutout in the comments or on [tumblr](https://vellaphoria.tumblr.com/) \- I'm constantly making editorial changes to this thing and extra eyes are always helpful (though I reserve the right to disregard proposed changes because editorial privilege and I'm lazy sometimes)


	2. Burn

Batman closes the last file on the flash drive just as the Istanbul’s lights fade from view. It blinks back mockingly from its port, red light glaring out from the case’s black metal.

Tim’s colors.

If he didn’t need those coordinates, he’d have ripped it out and thrown it across the cockpit hours ago. No use now, though. Not when he’s so close.

Anatolia sprawls out beneath the Batwing, passing silently in the darkness of the flight’s last leg. He feels the distance pressing in on him with every mile closer he gets to the Cradle. Or what’s left of it.

Despite his restlessness, the night is quiet, for now. Hopefully it’ll stay that way – the Batwing is durable, but it would be a bad idea to risk it against the sort of heavy weaponry governments tend to break out whenever a terror threat is active. He wonders if Tim calculated _this_ particular outcome when he blew up every League stronghold he could network to.

Batman smiles, as much as the weight of the cowl will allow. Thank god for Bruce’s paranoia and stealth technology more advanced than anything the world’s governments could ever hope to acquire. And for accountants and engineers discrete enough to hide an entire division of Wayne Tech’s R&D department dedicated to creating paramilitary gear without knowing what it’s for.

Bruce and Tim had been thorough, if anything. It’s a quality that extends to Tim’s parting gift, even if he does have half a mind to destroy the thing for what the information on it has done to their family.

He’ll concede that it’s a good system. Tim left no way to extract the coordinates from the drive without destroying the rest of the data, and the thing is only compatible with the Batcomputer’s derivative systems. Like the Batwing.

He designed to be _certain_ that none of this would end up in the wrong hands, even if that apparently includes any that aren’t Dick’s. It’s a contingency based on the flat assumption that Dick could actually bring himself to read the thing when the only reason he has it is because Tim is missing in action or worse.

A year ago, where was this blind faith in his ability to follow through? Why couldn’t Tim have trusted him like this when he was in Gotham, when he was…

Focus.

Eleven hours nonstop, Gotham to Istanbul and farther east. He probably slept after the previous night’s patrol, before he got the news about the explosion, but there’s enough room for doubt. His eyelids are heavy; concrete waiting to drown a traitor in the Gotham harbor. He hasn’t touched the bunks on the plane, couldn’t if he wanted to.

Focus is admittedly a bit of a problem right now.

But the foothills are growing into quiet peaks, dark against the new moon and ignorant of his passage. The mountains that started as the horizon are right in front of him.

So is the wreckage of a collapsed cave system; an ugly scar in the otherwise peaceful landscape. A circle of half dead grass waves in the displaced air of the Batwing’s descent.

He wants to claw at the rubble the second the plane sets down; to dig until his fingers bleed for proof, for _anything_ to tell him how this ended, one way or another. His rational mind growls out how that would destroy the crime scene before he can investigate. It sounds like Bruce.

The plane jolts with it’s landing. Light from the Batwing’s spotlight stretches out across the rubble. His boots hit the ground before the stairs even finish extending.

The complex was big. Easy enough to see at first glance; the damage is extensive. Large portions of the ground fall away into nothingness; other sections are piled high with stone and twisted rebar. Even with the spotlight, it’s a bit hard to make out, but… there.

A section about two hundred feet from the landing zone looks like it’s been dug up. Heavy machinery and a couple of police cars lie abandoned by the extraction site.

A rescue operation?

He’s about fifty feet out, trying to parse out the ledges that could lead to a sharp, steep fall, when he nearly trips. It isn’t a rock. Too soft.

The flashlight is easily accessible on his utility belt. Red filter for the LED; designed to avoid upsetting anything that might be lurking in Gotham’s sewers, but the extra lens is removable in case whatever is lurking happens to be Killer Croc. Never underestimate the disorientation a bright light can induce in someone who’s been in the dark too long, even if they’re a half-crocodile hybrid.

Now, he’s glad he hadn’t decided to start with the red filter.

Beneath him, the uniform on the body looks like it used to belong to an aid worker. He bends to turn the man over, cushioning the action to make it soundless.

What he sees has him reeling back quickly, coming to a crouch a foot away from the body. The suit isn’t equipped with air filters; hopefully that stuff isn’t airborne.

What little he can see of the man’s skin is ashy sepia beneath large purple blotches. Face frozen in fear, likely by some sort of paralytic. Poison, probably. The ragged quality of the skin makes it too hard to tell if it was transferred via topical contact or sub dermal injection.

Batman reaches for one of the small blades tucked into the utility belt. This may possibly be the worst part of his job.

Gloves on, Batman places two samples in sealed biohazard containers for later analysis; one of uncontaminated skin, another of a purple sore small enough to avoid bursting upon collection. The pictures he takes of the scene go without saying.

There are more of the aid workers scattered around the excavation site, interspersed with what looks like the bodies of a few Gendarmerie officers – Turkish police.

Different causes of death.

One or two more workers went the way of the first, skin bulging with violently purple boils, but a body over to the right is riddled with bullet holes. Another looks like it was literally ripped in half – the stink of rotting viscera wafts off a pile of red mush he isn’t too keen on inspecting.

The gun was likely automatic, judging by the impact patterns and sheer number of shots in some of these guys. Batman doesn’t want to know what did _that_ to the eviscerated worker, but he has a feeling he’s going to find out.

Shell casings join the skin samples in the section of the belt reserved for evidence. The pile of organs remains a picture to be studied later.

He moves on to the officers, noting the blood-drenched tactical gear. They’re littered around the site, falling interspersed among the aid workers. All of their throats are slit; still congealing, but none of their guns appear to have been fired. They were likely ambushed when they came to investigate why the relief effort failed to report in.

It could have been whoever ( _whatever_ ) killed the workers, but the blood is too fresh. Two separate times of death, and the modus operandi is all wrong. No poisons, gunshots, or stray body parts. It’s a stealth approach, which makes sense if he’s also dealing with the League.

One base, two sides. He knows the base was League, so maybe a rival operation cutting in on their territory? A challenge? Tam said something about spider guys, which could be related to the poison, but Tim’s files are _not_ helping him here.

Either way, if both sides escaped from the wreckage, they did so separately. Too much difference in the time of death for the aid workers and police officers. And there aren’t any dead from either side in the conflict; just innocents who were trying to help. Or, potentially, participating in an operation trying to cover up that this ever happened. It doesn’t matter now.

But if two entirely different sides in this conflict were able to escape, maybe there’s a chance…

The soft, almost silent clang of metal hitting metal rings from somewhere in the pit of the extraction site.

He looks back at the closest police officer, at the blood-dark slash across her neck _._ If ninjas escaped the Cradle for this massacre, they would have done so recently.

Or he’s interrupting a recon mission.

Batman walks to the edge of the hole in the rubble and stashes the flashlight back in its holster on the utility built. He touches a finger to the side of the cowl.

The night vision mode on the whiteouts doesn’t reveal anyone in the immediate section of base torn open by the excavation equipment, but a doorway about a story down is only partially blocked by rubble. The corresponding door leans against the other side of the revealed room, black scorch marks marring the visible surface.

More clanging, this time definitively beyond the doorway.

He drops down, boots impacting soundlessly on corrugated metal.

The floor and three reinforced walls are warped but steady. The blackened rocks scattered across the floor must be what’s left of the ceiling. Batman ducks under the revealed section of doorway and steps into the unlit cavern beyond. Whoever, or whatever, is down here with him still sounds pretty far off.

Hopefully it’s just an assassin; he doesn’t like his chances if whatever ripped that worker in half gets the drop on him.

Past the doorway, about five feet of metal walkway stop short above a gaping chasm. The banging is somewhere below, but the echo distorts the point of origin. Even with the night vision lenses, the cavern is deep enough that it’s bottom is swallowed by the murk.

Batman tugs on the metal struts protruding from the rock wall; they’re sturdy, probably enough hold a line. He fixes an expanding bolt in one of the gaps left by the torn-away railing and attaches a secondary line to it, just as a backup. It’s as much of a safety net as he can give himself, not knowing what’s down there.

Probably more debris; the ceiling in this section is too thick for the explosion to have to revealed the moonless night above, but the breakaway patterns indicate that large chunks of rock have fallen into the abyss below.

Rope secured, Batman follows their path.

Down and further down.

It feels like an age passes with the soft whirr of the automated decel line, but he will see this through. Even if the worst is waiting for him at the end of it.

The shadows grasp at him as he touches down, cape settling among the rubble. Batman braces himself, and finally looks around the cavern.

The bottom is, apparently, not the bottom at all. He’s landed in something that looks like a control center – though the rocks have made a wreck of the screens and monitors against the room’s back wall. Visible damage indicates he’s standing by the epicenter of the blast. Though it seems oddly clear, for a room that supposedly was the point of origin for an explosion. The walls are scorched, yes, and there are still piles of rubble strewn about, but. They’re neat piles. Like someone dug through the rubble, clearing it out in the process.

Ra’s people are efficient and meticulous as usual. They also appear to have beaten him here.

Batman walks the perimeter of the room. Seventeen paces to his left, the floor drops away. When he peers over, he can see several stories of rooms disappearing into the darkness, like a cutout view of a building layout dipped in thick, black ink.

He backs off and finishes his circuit. Aside from structural damage and wrecked electronic equipment, the cavern is empty of everything except blood.

Dried and crusted, but a lot of it.

He’s sensing a theme.

There are no bodies, but he’s never known Ra’s to suffer a sloppy clean up operation. Slit throats are one thing; the Demon’s Head wouldn’t leave his own people lying around unless he’s trying to send a message.

But this also means that Ra’s _isn’t_ trying to send a message.

No message. No bodies. No real evidence of what happened here.

And no Tim Drake.

It should be reassuring. But the chance that Tim made it out on his own is slim compared to the odds that Ra’s has him – or his body.

The cold dark of the destroyed base creeps under his skin, despite the suit’s insulation.

He should go; the Batwing has access to their records on Ra’s bases – whatever’s left of them, anyway. He can cross-reference their list with the places that were destroyed and narrow it down to the locations that aren’t on the second list. Places the Demon’s Head could be planning his next step. Places he might be keeping Tim.

A sharp _clang_ rings out through the nothingness.

He’d almost forgotten about the noise. It’s louder now, reverberating through the dust-choked air. He lets his footsteps follow the sound, quiet as the burnt-out stillness surrounding him.

Batman hadn’t missed the hallway tucked between two piles of stacked rubble. He’s _Batman_. But it looked collapsed beyond the gap of a blast door peeking out and had been silent when he passed it.

The door looks jammed, warped shut in its frame by the heat and pressure of the explosion; a blast door that did it’s job, but not well enough to be functional afterword. The sound is still metal on metal, but no cries for help. If he’d heard some sort of meaty banging, like large fists against the door, there would be no way in hell he’d even consider opening it. That worker didn’t disembowel himself, after all.

But it sounds more like someone is trying to pry it open, maybe with a crowbar, and the muffled, angry muttering tells him whoever it is doesn’t care much about subtlety. That isn’t usually a trait admired in assassins, but whoever is on the other side isn’t strong enough to rip the door off even with leverage.

So long as he doesn’t have to worry about being ripped in half…

“Back up. I’m putting a charge on the door.” The gravel of the voice modifier echoes in the cavern. Utility belt, second pocket on the right; sticky bombs, timed detonation. They should pack enough of a localized punch to do the job.

The pellets hold fast to the seam between door and frame. Batman backs up a few steps; the suit’s undergone enough tests and armor upgrades for him to know that the reinforced kevlar and nomex will protect him from small blasts, so long as he covers the exposed part of his face with the cape. Whoever’s on the other side… if they’re smart they’ll find cover.

He flicks the switch on the detonator. Hopefully they’re smart.

The blast rings through the hollow cavern, amplified by the empty space to sound more explosive than it really is. A thin plume of smoke wafts upward, carried to the surface by an imperceptible breeze.

“Fuck!” Someone yells from behind the smoke cover. It isn’t the worst thing he’s heard from someone stuck that close to an explosion.

He switches the night vision off in favor of his flashlight. Past the door now hanging half off its hinges, most of the room is caved in. It looks like it might have led to a hallway at one point, but only a small portion is free of rocks.

The trapped person had managed to maneuver behind a fallen pillar of stone and avoid the brunt of the blast, but when she steps forward, a smell unique to explosions still manages to cling to her clothing. The gear looks paramilitary; body armor covering a grey combat jacket. Her fingerless gloves and the hems of her sleeves have seen better days.

Something he gets a close and personal look at when she takes one step through the doorway and a fist is suddenly swinging at his face.

He catches it, easily, with the hand not holding the flashlight, but he has to give her credit for trying to punch out _Batman_ after being stuck in a mostly collapsed room for over twenty-four hours. At least, she certainly _looks_ like she’s been down here that long.

Dirt is smudged across her face, streaking up around her shaved head. Her nose looks like it’s been broken more than once, but not recently. From where her fist is caught in his grip, the part of her hand not covered by the glove is a web of old and healing cuts. Her fingernails are ragged, caked with dirt; she probably tried to dig her way out when she wasn’t trying to pry the door open with the piece of rebar on the floor behind her. He wonders why she didn’t try to attack him with that _first_.

The whiteout lenses are down; she isn’t going to win this staring contest.

“Who the bloody hell are you?” She demands.

Charming.

He releases the fist, letting her stumble backwards, and points the flashlight to the smoking charges. “Does it matter?”

Now that she isn’t squinting from the LED, her eyes find the distinctive shape of the cowl, drop down to the bat emblem on his chest. “Hmm. Thought you’d be taller,” she says, sqinting. 

“I could leave you down here if you’d prefer?”

She glares at him but remains silent.

“Though you _are_ going to have to answer a few questions for me first, or you’ll be finding your own way out,” Batman says. A no kill policy isn’t always merciful. They both know her chances of getting out of here on her own are slim.

The woman scoffs, “ _Fine._ ”

Considering the way she introduced herself, he wasn’t expecting it to be that easy. But he’ll take what he can get.

“You’re one of Ra’s’ assassins?” He asks. She nods. “Then you know what happened here.”

“You gonna ask me a real question, handsome?” She waits a beat, but he doesn’t rise to it. “No? Ok. There was an explosion.”

Really _._ “I can see that.”

Now it’s her turn to stare. Batman sighs. “Do you know _why_ there was an explosion?”

“Because there were explosives, I guess? I was on my way outta here before I knew _exactly_ what was going down. Probably shouldn’t be surprised that he tried to blow the place up.” She scoffs, but it sounds oddly fond. “Tch, no hard feelings, though. It’s not like he didn’t _tell_ me to get the fuck out ahead of time.”

“Ra’s…?”

She looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “You might want to get your head checked, love. Why would Ra’s blow up his own base?”

He isn’t going to dignify that with a response, but she continues anyway.

“Nah. It was Red Robin, or whatever the fuck he’s calling himself. Though if a guy kicks that much arse, looking as good as he does when he does it, I figure he’s entitled to go around ripping off a restaurant chain if he wants to.”

What.

“You work for Ra’s. Weren’t you trying to stop him?”

She cocks her hip and raises and eyebrow at him. Says, “I have my orders,” like he just personally insulted her.

He’s getting impatient. “Which are?”

“Irrelevant, without Birdy around.” Which sounds like a whole lot of _nope_ from where Batman is standing, but Ra’s people tend to prefer taking themselves out of the equation before they’ll willingly give up their secrets. The Bruce voice in his head informs him can’t risk an interrogation going south while she’s still useful. Batman reluctantly agrees.

“… Do you know what happened to him?” He asks, at length.

And her glare comes out of _nowhere_ , but it’s hot enough to scorch flint when she spits out, “Said I wasn’t here when it happened. ‘Sides, even if I _did_ fucking know, why would I tell _you_? It’s not like you _care_.”

This is getting weirder and weirder. The refusal to tell him, he understands; that part is standard when dealing with Ra’s people. But _her_ reason for it definitely isn’t. Why would she care about him caring…?

“What is that supposed to –” She chops the air with her hand, a sharp motion to silence him as she cuts in.

“You’re the new Batman, yeah? Kicked Red out of Gotham, told him he was crazy and left him on his own to go look for the _other_ one? World’s a dangerous place, handsome, and there’s lot of people out there who might want to notch a former Robin into their belt.” Which apparently doesn’t include her.

He didn’t _kick Tim out of Gotham_ … but he didn’t exactly _stop_ him from leaving, either. The look she gives him says pretty clearly that she isn’t looking for him to defend against any of that. She isn’t done.

“A guy running around without any sort of backup could get himself into to all _sorts_ of trouble. That’s why it was _my_ job to keep him out of it. Besides, if you care so much, where the bloody hell were _you_ when he was bleeding out in the desert?”

… what. Did she…

“When did _that_ happen? And why _exactly_ does one of Ra’s assassins know _any_ _of this_.”

“About eight months ago, and because I was _there_ , arsehole. Got this souvenir for my trouble, too.” She makes a sharp gesture to her neck, pulling at the v-ee in the jacket’s high collar. Beneath it is more pale skin, and a thick, angry scar running the width of her neck. It isn’t new, but it isn’t _old_ either.

The woman Tam found in her hotel room. The one who nearly _died_ with Tim.

And Batman has so many _questions_ , but.

“Why didn’t Ra’s people get you out of here when they cleared the base? And if your orders really were to protect Red Robin, why didn’t Ra’s kill you for,” he gestures to the entirety of the scorched cave, “all this.”

If the topic change jars her, she doesn’t show it.

“Plausible deniability, love. If they came by, I was out for it. Actually, just woke up about a minute or two before you came blasting in. Second question: orders change. And even if they didn’t, the White Ghost ain’t gonna risk getting’ executed for incompetence just to tell Ra’s I walked out when Red told me to.”

Batman’s mind flashes to the freshly cut throats on the police officers up top; a cleanup operation would have finished up here just before he arrived. The timing is conspicuous, to say the least. She _does_ look like she’s been trapped down here, and that door didn’t warp itself shut, but Ra’s has pulled overly complex things – like planting an agent – before.

…though Ra’s agents don’t usually try to punch him in the face _and_ talk about how attractive his missing brother is within the span of a few minutes.

If it’s an act, it’s a good one. And she has nothing to gain by telling him the truth, but if even half of what she’s saying is accurate…

He was right to assume Ra’s al Ghul’s involvement would complicate things.

“Last question, for now. What should I call you?”

She looks reluctant. “…Prudence.”

Batsuit or no, he almost laughs. Someone definitely missed the mark on that one.

“Ok, Prudence. How about we get you out of here.”

Apparently on board with that plan, she follows him across the cavern, coming to a stop where the line is dangling from the abyss. It’s a good thing he put that bolt in; the walkway five stories above might not hold both of them on its own.

She’s about Tim’s height, so it isn’t a completely alien sensation to wrap an arm around her back and hold her securely. Her arms wrap around his neck, ostensibly to stop her from falling in case he lets go.

Though she doesn’t do anything to disguise the way her eyes track up and down the Batsuit before she hangs on, or the leer that makes it look like she’s enjoying this a _little_ too much. Suboptimal, but it could be a _far_ worse experience, considering her allegiances.

Which is to say, the ascent goes smoothly because he doesn’t end up stabbed, even with a prickly assassin holding on to him too tight as she rides shotgun.

They eventually make it to the metal walkway, and her death grip transfers from him to the railing embedded in the rock. She doesn’t spare him a second glance as she inches along the wall, each step towards the waiting door more cautious than he would have expected from her. Fear of heights, if he had to guess. Another odd quality for an assassin.

He leaves the line in the wall and follows her out of the base, into the waiting night.

This is about the time that his luck usually runs out, so he’s half expecting to come face to face with a squad of ninja by the time they make it up the final rock wall and stagger out onto the scrub grass of the excavation site.

Maybe next time.

Prudence sticks with him just long enough to keep her distance from the purple, splotchy bodies – probably has first hand experience with whatever did that to them – but she isn’t too subtle about edging away from him once they’re clear of the crime scene.

It’s just as well; he has handcuffs, but he hadn’t thought to equip the Batwing for potentially unwilling passengers before he left. Just shock blankets and trauma-oriented medical equipment for his best-case scenario, and a full-sized cooler for his worst.

He may be wearing the cowl right now, but even outside of it Dick honestly hadn’t expected any other outcomes.

Batman looks to where Prudence is standing, eying the abandoned vehicles with an appraising look. They’re still a long way out from Istanbul, and he isn’t sure how much damage the aid workers’ vehicles and Gendarmerie’s transportation took in the cleanup effort. At least one of the less armored ones looks like it was wrecked when a barrage of bullets gutted it.

He looks at the Batwing, thinks about it. She knew Tim. In the last year Dick’s been stuck in Gotham, when he had no idea where his little brother was, she was with him. It’s enough to make him want to offer…

“Hey, handsome.” He turns back from the plane. Prudence has taken a few steps in his direction, hands held up nonthreateningly (as if Ra’s assassins need _weapons_ to cause serious damage).

“Tell you what. You give me a ride to somewhere with mobile service in that plane of yours, and I’ll tell you a story. Fill in some blanks you might be missing.”

Batman is still pretty sure her account would be dubious, at best.

But it isn’t like he’s going to find a more direct source. Not one who’s _willing_ to talk to him, at any rate.

He gestures towards the motion-activated door. The light pouring out from inside is softer than the harsh glare of the spotlights. Prudence doesn’t ask twice, so he climbs up behind her, cape brushing against the retracting stairs. The door is closed before they make it to the cockpit.

“So.” She starts, leaning back into the co-pilots chair and kicking her boots up on the console like she isn’t getting dirt and grass all over the place. She ignores his scowl. “What do you want to know about Tim?”

 

**…**

Two and a half hours after _that_ freak out (Ra’s al Ghul has always known their secret identities, why should he be surprised that the _assassins_ guarding Tim do too?), she stops him just inside the German border, on the outskirts of the Black Forest.

He sets down outside the town’s boundaries; close enough to walk, but too far for anyone to get clear cellphone footage of a foreign superhero setting down on German soil. The country’s been a bit… touchy about that since Tim’s little museum trip.

He walks her to the door, forcing himself to _not_ try interrogating her for Tim’s location (again). “Should I assume there’s a League base around here?” he asks instead, not really expecting an answer.

She lives up to expectations.

“Wouldn’t you like to know? I got a peek at that list of yours; it’s pretty good for someone I’ve never even met before, but we both know it’s not perfect. So, gorgeous, you have to ask yourself: is there a base here, or am I just giving you the runaround?” Crossed arms and a cocked hip are the only non-answer he’s likely to get from her.

He thinks she’s going to leave it at that, but Prudence has one more surprise for him tonight.

“You know what, Bats?" She asks. He assumes it's rhetorical. "You’re not that bad, your part in fucking up Red notwithstanding. Hell, I almost _like_ you and we just met. That your superpower or something?”

Some people certainly seem to think so, though he hasn’t heard that from many people since giving up the black and blue.

“ _But_ since I almost like you _and_ I’m feeling nice today, I’ll give you a hint: throw out your bloody list. You won’t find Red in any of those places.” Prudence turns and starts to walk away, just like that.

“Wait! You know where he is? And you expect me to just _let_ you walk away after telling me something like _that_?” Batman is about to charge at her with the cuffs. She’s getting farther away, almost at the edge of the pool of light coming from the open door when she stops and turns.

“One: No. Two: also no. Three: Obviously. _Someone_ has to track him down, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be you.”

And, oh, this is a _bad_ idea, but Batman has to try. ( _Dick_ has to try)

“You’re not even going to give me a chance? If you’re going to look for him, at least let me help. I have to… If he’s alive, I need to know.” They all need to know.

Her expression is considering, and she stands evaluating him for a long, tense moment before shaking her head. Smirking.

“I can take it from here, love. But it means more than you know that you thought to ask. We’ll see each other again.” She says, turning out of the Batwing’s light. “Give my best to Gotham.” The two-fingered salute she directs back at him is really the capstone of the entire experience.

Chasing her down again won’t help. The best he can do is sigh, walk back into the plane, and get ready for takeoff. He’s a little ridiculously pleased that none of the systems are sabotaged, even if he _does_ have to spend his first few minutes airborne clearing out the bugs she’d placed. Three in total, four if you count the tracking device.

Batman has her beat by one – there are currently no less than five devices stuck to innocuous parts of her clothing, one of which is transmitting her location to a small side screen to the left of the pilot’s chair. He shifts the cowl off, letting his scalp breathe for the first time in more than fifteen hours, and settles in to watch the dot move across the tracking screen.

Prudence – Pru, she’d told him to call her in an annoyed huff after the first few times he’d said her full name – was _interesting_ , if anything.

Not really what he would have expected from an exclusive interview with a League-trained assassin. Really, impulsiveness aside, she and Damian were nothing alike.

But if he drew a Venn diagram of people who are on a first-name basis with Tim, people who are involved with the cape and cowl community, and people who have actually _seen_ Red Robin in the last year, she and Tam would probably be the only two people at hand who fit all three categories.

Depending on weather or not ‘involvement’ includes working for the Demon’s Head and trying to punch Batman in the face.

Though Dick is a little more willing to overlook that, considering how illuminating their conversation had been. He learned a lot about the last year, like how Tim was _running_ the League’s operations at the request and coercion of Ra’s al Ghul.

Or how Tim and Pru almost _died_ with the rest of her team when a member of the Council of Spiders ambushed them. Going by her descriptions, they were _defiantly_ the cause of the more gruesome deaths at the excavation site. Before the explosion, Tim had fought them seven to one _and_ come out on top. Jesus Christ.

She apparently wasn’t exaggerating how much ass Tim was kicking near the end. There were other things, up to that last exchange, that Pru couldn’t or wouldn’t tell him. But she did fill in a lot of the gaps in his knowledge – everything Tim’s flash drive had said _absolutely nothing_ about.

An insane amount of files and none of them had anything on the Council _or_ the League; it’s almost like Tim wasn’t expecting Dick to need that information after he received the flash drive. Like he didn’t think Dick would even _try_ to rescue him… or like Tim thought he’d be dead by the time the flash drive reached Gotham. Maybe all of the above.

Dick plants his elbows on the console and drops his head into his hands. The sleep deprivation weighs heavy on his muscles.

The plane has a function for autopilot to Gotham. He _should_ let Bruce’s programming do it’s job so he can pass out for an hour or two, but he can barely think – let alone sleep – knowing that flash drive is still plugged into the Batwing’s USB.

The closed files stare at him through the screen of the onboard computer.

They’re just full of… pictures. Dates, documents, and data; a year of Tim’s search across countries, continents. Far more than just an Aztec temple in Mexico, a museum in Germany, and a cave in Iraq.

( _Where were you when he was bleeding out in the desert?_ )

The files are peppered with Tim’s observations, little notes connecting the data points in Tim’s research. Each is incoherent on its own, but they’re just individual points on a graph. Place them side by side, chain them together, examine them as a comprehensive whole and…

Oh.

( _I know I’m right, Dick. And I’m going to_ prove _it._ )

Maybe it’s just because he’s tired, maybe it’s because he _wants_ it to be true. It’s nothing _conclusive_ , but…

Tim comes first.

Knowing something is wrong and being able to do anything about it are two very different things. And it’s the gap between that he’s always hated. At his core, Dick _knows_ this is going to eat at him, but until he can ferret out the bases _not_ on his list, the trail is cold.

Dick gives in and shifts the lights to a low setting. His hair springs back into place after he drags his hands through it. A useless part of his brain wonders why cowl hair inevitably becomes a bird’s nest.

The coordinates are set for Gotham and the plane is switched to autopilot. Dick sighs and drags himself the few feet from the cockpit to the plane’s uninviting bunk.

 

**…**

He dreams of water. Everywhere.

It surrounds him on all sides, making him feel weightless. Like he’s adrift; a boat unmoored in the open ocean. Impermanent like he only ever feels when he’s three days into sleep deprivation and at the tail end of a caffeine high.

Or like he’s drowning in the harbor. _Again_. But why…?

Through his eyelids, everything glows, pulses like the heartbeat of a living thing. Like his, maybe, if his vascular system could justify the term. It’s a strange sensation, feeling his own veins in ways that human perception logically shouldn’t allow. Stranger still to feel the speed at which his pulse is gaining and losing strength in time with the water’s glow. It’s slow – slower than a human heartbeat should realistically be, even in a deep meditative state.

But it’s peaceful, in a way. The only thing he needs to think about is the way his pulse echoes in his ears, the sedated calm of his brain finally – for once – being _quiet_. The feeling is… unfamiliar.

Somewhere in the nebulous concept his brain assigns to the word ‘before,’ he thinks this is the sort of calm that would have suppressed even his most turbulent emotions; exactly what he would have tried to achieve whenever his weaknesses threatened to get in the way of something more important. A mission?

_The_ mission?

It had seemed so important at the time – leeching the color from thoughts (memories?) like charcoal filters poison from the bloodstream.

It’s easy to compartmentalize when, in monochrome, the blood congealing on a sharp metal boomerang is so much duller than the deep midnight of a steel-edged cape. The same way that, against his will, the rough edged drag of a freshly cut gravestone lost it’s hold over him the second gloved fingers – black and blue like bruises – said _come here, little brother_.

But that makes no sense… he only ever remembers being an _only_ child.

The thought is fleeting, washed away quickly by the current surrounding him and the tingling of bubbles against his skin.

It’s the kind of tranquility he’s only ever felt after a good alley brawl, a few zip ties short with blood on his gauntlets and a small, sharp smile on his face. On the nights meditation just wouldn’t cut it.

But why would he be fighting in an alley? He lives in a dangerous city, sure, but that can’t explain his urge to go out of his way looking for trouble; his _need_ to claw and kick and not stop fighting until nothing is left standing but the city’s living shadows. Maybe not even then.

He feels the water trying to claim this thought, too. The sound of blood in his ears is sluggish, and the water’s pulses are slow and steady, pulling him under again as it floods his senses.

It’s everywhere, everything.

He’d choke on it if he felt the need to breathe.

If he felt the need to do anything.

The absence of necessity doesn’t sound right. Like the concept of slowing down – of _stopping_ – is alien to his existence, and the incongruity is the first thing outside of semi-consciousness that he’s aware of since… something. Memory slips away from his brain as easily as the water flows between his fingers, but awareness comes to him in fits and starts.

His skin tells him he is surrounded by water, but his lungs aren’t screaming for oxygen. He pries his eyes open to determine that there no reason for the faint impression of torn and mangled limbs stalking the periphery of his consciousness. His sight is… hazy, at best. Submerged. But he can pretty clearly see that all his legs and arms are at least still attached. More than just attached. No charred skin, no vicious avulsion of his left femur. He can’t make out his scars from here, but the rest of him looks fine despite floating in some sort of lurid green liquid.

Or… because of it.

The longer he stares at it, the more that the shade of green seems nausea inducing. Like something sickly that throws up every red flag his brain can muster. There’s a word for it, he knows. Not just green, but…

Lazarus green.

His heart goes from languid to racing in a blink. Muscle memory in his arms fights to claw to the water’s surface, mouth snapping shut so he can’t inhale even more of the Lazarus Pit when his lungs start to spasm. He careens to the surface, assisted by an inexplicable force pulling up on him. His eyes snap shut, instinctively closing tight against the inevitable sting of air.

The surface of the water breaks around him, waves lapping against the skin of his face as he greedily sucks in oxygen. His lungs _burn_ with each breath, and when he opens them, his eyes are clouded by water.

Cold air stings each inch of skin as it rises out of the Pit, lifted by two bands of pressure supporting his knees and upper back. The world _tilts_ and nausea washes over him. Everything around him is blurred; indefinite splashes of color against a flickering light source.

The last thing he knows before he passes out is the hum of a deep, dark voice, echoing in his ears, reverberating through his _bones_.

It says, “Welcome back, _Detective_.”

 

 


	3. Wake

He returns to consciousness with a start, gasping with the force of everything – comprehension, memories,  _all of it_  –flooding back into him like the torrent of Gotham’s river after a thunderstorm.

Gotham, he remembers. Gotham and Batman and he’s never going to see either again but at least Dick has enough of a lead to find Bruce and that’s all that matters and –

They’re going to be  _okay_ , and Robin –

Robin.

No, that’s not right.

He’s  _Red_  Robin now, and he’s earned the modifier; deserves the way that it tastes like gunfire and acid rain. Like blood on the sand and a sword to the gut.

Even if it  _is_  everything he has left, he thinks for just a moment that maybe it’s ok if the hollow, charred thing dies here with him.

But… where is here? He doesn’t  _feel_  dead, dying, or really even sleep deprived…

He’s held up on his back; strung between two arms; strong, well-muscled to the point where he can  _feel_  how they don’t strain with the effort of holding him because there is no barrier between skin and skin.

What the fuck.

No one who operates out of Gotham has that particular bulk of musculature  _and_  such blatant disregard for acceptable spandex-to-skin ratios for vigilantes.

Unless Dick forgot to surrender his clothes to Alfred for the laundry. Again. And is for some reason holding him in a sort of bridal carry. Without a shirt on.

He clings to the notion that Dick would be anywhere within one hundred miles of him (willingly, at least) for the quiet moment before rationality sets in.

Dick is leaner – built more for the lithe finesse of acrobatics than the raw power in the arms holding him. Bruce definitely has comparable arms, but he’s still lost in time… and generally more inclined to shirt wearing than the first former Robin.

All of which is less than reassuring because Red Robin is  _not_  on friendly terms with anyone else who has that kind of musculature. Maybe Jason, if any of the times in the last year he’s ended up in Gotham saving the Red Hood’s ass have stuck with the guy. But he still wouldn’t trust that sort of closeness to not end with the sharp edge of a knife to his throat.

So he doesn’t even feel bad about the nerve strike he aims at the neck doubtlessly connected to the broad chest he’s being pressed against.

… or tries to aim. Because as fast as Red Robin has become, he’s disoriented and whoever is holding him is acutely aware of this. Halfway between the thought and the action, his captor is shifting his weight to one arm and catching his wrist in a vise masquerading as a hand.

Just in time for the world to un-blur enough to form a clear, horrifying picture. He has to blink a few times to be  _really sure_  that his eyes (unfortunately) aren’t lying and he really is suspended about a foot above the roiling water of a Lazarus Pit and face to fucking chest with  _Ra’s al Ghul_.

A small, unfocused part of his brain contemplates that there may not be swears in  _existence_  that can adequately describe how he feels about this.

Because this shit right here? This is the stuff of nightmares. Ninjas and a condescending voice relayed through a communicator are one thing; taking a dip in the fountain of crazy with  _the Demon’s Head_  as his half naked tour guide is entirely another.

He is so fucked.

“Have you returned to us, Timothy?” Ra’s asks. He has the gall to look  _concerned._

_What. The._   _Fuck_.

It isn’t that he wants to be dropped back in the Pit – though he isn’t sure what that would do considering he just came out of it – but it’s the principle of the thing. One does not simply let Ra’s al Ghul manhandle them into submission. Especially when  _one is not wearing clothing_ and Ra’s shirt is  _nowhere_  in the general vicinity.

Robin would  _not_  be ok with this.

Red Robin might, if it was part of the long game and he had a shiv on hand, and Tim –

Tim.

The name doesn’t feel quite right, but it doesn’t taste like spitting blood, and it sure as hell isn’t  _Timothy._ So, good enough. It might even sound like coming home, if he had one anymore.

But.

Tim will have to be good enough. Because right here, right now? It doesn’t matter if it’s really his name or not because he has  _so many_ more immediate problems.

Like being in the physical proximity of Ra’s al Ghul. Tim uses his free arm to try for nerve strike number two.

Ra’s moves to the edge of the Pit - apparently taking his thrashing around as a sign that the water did its job – but Tim is pretty sure they both know what’s coming when Ra's sets him down on the edge..

So he’s less than surprised when, after giving up the leverage required to pull Tim back in the Lazarus Pit, Ra’s dodges the thrown punch. The bastard just backs up out of his reach and  _laughs_  when Tim jumps to his feet and goes for the nearest ninja. Because, really, she was just standing there, one foot too close to a formerly dead man and unaware enough to not  _back the fuck up_  when the gravity of the situation comes crashing down on him.

He shouldn’t be here right now. It was the end for him and he was  _ready_  for it. He  _died_  to stop Ra’s and instead the man just  _threw him in a fucking Lazarus Pit_ because, what? Tim denied Ra's whatever petty, messed up revenge scheme he would have hatched otherwise?

Because Tim  _beat_  him?

He swings his head back, standing naked as the day he was born and glaring at Ra’s like the man would even deign to admit he’d lost. Ra's smirks. No answers are forthcoming. Tim turns so he can keep his eyes on Ra’s and the ninjas at the same time.

There has to be a solution here. A rational response; something he’s missed, or an alternate path he can take to get the fuck out of this.  _Something_.

Tim tries and mostly fails to suck in a deep breath.

He just came out of a  _Lazarus Pit_.

(No way outta this but the way ya went in, Pretender. And just in case you’re thinkin’ ‘a takin’ any real  _drastic_  measures, ain’t hard ta guess that Ra’s is just gonna throw ya right back in…)

_Oh god._

He looks around, wildly. The walls of the cave are getting closer; shutting in on him.  _Trapping him_. His breath comes faster, lungs hitching,  _spasming_  with the force of rapid, half-aborted breaths that catch in his throat, straining the muscles in his neck until it feels as if they’ll crush his trachea.

His muscles convulse and Tim slams his eyes shut against trembling legs and his pounding heart and the air is too thick and he just needs to  _breathe_  and –

Something clicks.

His breathing evens out. His heartbeat slows. Both become as calm as they would be during only his most intense meditation. Without warning. Like the Lazarus water inside his lungs dug claws into them and  _stretched_  until he drew breath.

In the newfound stillness, his eyes snap open. The room is in razor-sharp focus.

And everything is  _green_.

Ra’s is behind him, but that isn’t a fight he can win on his best day. The ninja block all other paths. He sees twenty-six, twenty-five if he doesn’t count the one already on the ground.

None of them move a muscle, the unnatural angle of the defeated ninja’s legs showing them that they’re facing down something that will  _go for the jugular_  if any of them are  _anything_  but deathly still.

The thrum of tension is thick in the air.

He almost thinks Ra’s is going to stop this before it escalates, but…

A single foot shifts back, scraping against the rock.

The closest ninja don’t even get the chance to  _think_  about trying to run.

Tim lunges forward, closing the gap between pool and ninja. His fist catches the first ninja on the jaw, spinning him and sending him crashing into the cave’s floor. The momentum carries, shifting the swing into a leaping roundhouse kick, taking the next two ninjas down with probable concussions.

A voice in his head asks if he  _really_  wants to go around kicking people when he isn’t wearing anything even resembling boots, but the howling of the Pit in his ears drowns the whisper out.

Ninja four is in just the right position for him to grab her weapon – long, spear-ish thing – and twist. She keeps her grip, and Tim uses that mistake to send her flying into ninjas five through seven. Ninja eight quickly joins that pile when he follows through with a low sweep, taking out her legs. A swift kick to her knee and a loud crack ensure she won’t be getting up anytime soon.

Nine looks like he wants to panic. To his credit, he doesn’t really get to that point until Tim is right in front of him, nerve-striking his arms out of commission and landing an elbow in his gut that will hurt for the next month.

He whirls to face the suddenly occupied space behind him. Ninja ten is a tricky one; he’s quiet, even by ninja standards, because he manages to get  _right behind_ Tim before he notices. The ninja goes for the solar plexus; a single jab that would have put Tim out of commission if he was still where the ninja thought he was.

Maybe it’s his time as Red Robin, maybe it’s the Pit, but, either way, he’s fast enough that the guy jabs at empty air. Tim uses the force of the miscalculated strike to flip the ninja over his shoulder and forcefully acquaint his head with the floor.

He turns from where ninja ten fell to face his next opponent.

Ninja eleven will be a problem. She’s tall, covered in toned muscles and crossed with a series of jagged scars. A survivor, then. Maybe they have common ground, Tim thinks, before dodging the slash of her kukri and deciding that their differences can’t be reconciled after all. Besides, she seems to getting along just fine with the wall, especially when Tim unbalances her enough to slam her head into it hard enough to leave a small smear of blood on the uneven surface. She drops to the floor, moaning pain as ninjas twelve and thirteen charge Tim, weapons drawn.

His smile is rough and jagged.

The attack is reckless, and Ra’s people  _really_  should know better.

Axes are sharp but slow weapons; easy to dodge. Even easier to get between his two attackers to grab one of the ninja and  _turn_. Twelve never sees it coming. A jab that would have put a new hole in Tim’s chest instead glances off the muscle of her shoulder. Her screaming sounds a little bit like music.

He throws twelve into thirteen, with the added bonus of making another small ninja pile when their combined momentum puts ninja fourteen on the ground.

Number fifteen takes one look at his eyes and joins the remaining ten ninja along the edges of the room, backing off as Tim breathes harshly in a circle of bodies. They’re visibly wary, even if they aren’t actively retreating.

The sudden space is the eye of the hurricane; storm winds dying down enough for Tim to hear his own thoughts and look at the devastation surrounding him.

…what is he doing? In the middle of an unknown location,  _somewhere_  underground, trapped in a room by more ninja than he probably has the energy to defeat. Twenty feet away from an immortal megalomaniac who could wipe the floor with Tim if the guy decided to get out of the Pit and  _do something_  about this other than standing waist-deep in green water with arms crossed and an appraising look.

A surreptitious glance reminds Tim that he is not, in fact, wearing clothing. Anywhere. At all. And really, the world is fading back into normal colors but he can’t remember how he got across the room. Or why half the ninja are on the ground in various states of  _pain_. It doesn’t seem like a hard riddle to solve, but…none of his conclusions are reassuring.

His wrists and knuckles ache like he’s gone ten rounds against a punching bag without the right gloves. He tastes salt and copper, and when he wipes at his mouth, his hand comes away bloody. No pain; it isn’t his.

Either none of the fourteen ninjas managed to get a hit in – and that is a distinct possibility since everything that hurts aches from overuse rather than injury – or they  _did_  and it didn’t do anything. Both are unrealistic, but neither option is exactly reassuring Tim that he can just shake off being dunked in the Pit.

After all, if he got faster or gained some measure of invulnerability, what’s to say that something else – something more important – didn’t change? He’s  _been_ on the other side of that equation; faced down the depths of the Pit with a knife to his throat. Seen that loss of control up close and personal.

The thing is though, Tim feels  _good_.

Better than he should realistically feel after going toe to toe with fourteen League-trained ninjas, especially since he basically blacked out for the entire fight. And that – both of those things, really – is  _terrifying_. Compared to Batman’s other protégés, Tim may not be the most proficient fighter, but he  _knows_  his capabilities. He can take the fight to anyone who wants to challenge him and he can win, but… if he  _liked it_. Not just the adrenaline and the rush of the fight, but if he legitimately enjoyed the feeling of bone breaking under his fists  _and_  didn’t have enough control to regulate the force of his punches?

He looks back at the defeated ninjas. None of them  _look_  dead, but… none of this is good.

Tim glances down and nudges the closest ninja with his foot. He wonders if Ra’s will kill them for their failure to subdue him, and, if so, where the hell he keeps finding more ninjas.

He suspects he won’t get an answer to that. Ra's seems to have sated his curiosity for  _whatever_  this was – a test, maybe? Ra’s preferred form of entertainment? – and is wading back to the edge of the Lazarus Pit, smiling like he’s figured something out and wants everyone to know that he got there first. It looks remarkably snake-like.

The Lazarus water sluices down dark skin and defined musculature. Tim really hopes Ra's is wearing pants.

Around him, the rest of the ninja use his momentary distraction to close ranks, forming a tight half-circle of League uniforms. In his periphery, he can sense even more of them flooding into the room and falling into formation. Ra’s steps onto dry land and closes off any remaining chance of escape.

“Ah,  _Detective_ ," he says, practically purring, "So  _good_  of you to join us; your return made for  _quite_  the entrance.” Smug bastard, Tim thinks, with less fire than he could have. Ra’s may have ruined his final contingency by bringing him back, but at least he has the decency to wear  _some_ clothing when reanimating the dead.

If only he’d extended the same courtesy to the one he was reanimating.

Tim hopes this won’t be becoming a trend.

“Wh-” he coughs like he’s about to see his lungs hanging out of his mouth. “Why am I here, Ra’s?” Tim means that in more ways than one. He was  _dead_. Should be dead, still. It isn’t often that an outcome isn’t factored into his contingencies, but he legitimately hadn’t though Ra’s was crazy (or petty) enough to bring back an adversary after he’d technically defeated them.

Though it may be because of the technicality itself; an incomplete victory – and Tim would call the wholesale destruction of League bases and elimination of Ra’s revenge scheme at  _least_  a minor hiccup, even if it did require his death to achieve – isn’t really victory at all to someone as arrogant as the Demon’s Head. It’s exactly what he should have expected from the kind of asshole who goes around calling themselves that.

Hopefully, the same kind of asshole who will – if Tim is lucky – get on with his monologue early enough for Tim to wreck another base. As a backup plan, makes a mental note to try and figure out what Ra’s name was before he started going by pretentious astrological symbolism. If only to annoy him.

Ra’s hums evasively, with that too-common undertone of  _the mortals are being amusing again_. He eventually says, “All in good time, Timothy,” like he actually values his bases and doesn’t want them blown up in the immediate future.

And Tim is tired, exhausted, almost. Right down to his bones. But when he’s facing down Ra’s al Ghul? It doesn’t matter. The buzzing in the back of his head is starting to feel like the most perfectly timed adrenaline rush ever, and Tim uses that to sink down into a ready position, showing Ra’s  _exactly_  what’s about to happen if he is opening his mouth to tell him anything other than the answers he needs.

“Must you be so  _impatient_?” Ra’s asks, smug tone of voice quickly sinking into exasperated. Tim lowers his center of gravity farther, getting ready to take out ninja fifteen. Ra's sighs. “No matter, eventually we  _will_  have this discussion, Detective. Preferably after you have had some  _sleep._ ”

It must be a code to the ninja or something, because suddenly they’re closing in. It’s too many to realistically fight at once when he’s this drained, but he feels the Pit clawing at him anyway, itching to put aside the ache in his muscles and just  _try_  and take on the next twenty or thirty League-trained fighters. He’s a little scared he might be able to do it, too.

But before his brain can tap too deeply into  _that_  headspace, he feels a slight prick in his neck, like one of the ninjas rushing him got behind his guard and stuck him with a hypodermic - 

Everything shifts; his center of balance is suddenly two feet to the right of him.

\- needle. Just like the one sticking out of his neck, still held in ninja twenty-three’s gloved hand.

It’s fast acting, too. Shit.

Ra’s is smirking down at him. Tim only makes it a few steps before the sedative and the weight of the ninja become too much and he’s  _out_.

 

**…**

If it weren’t impossible, Dick would suspect that Gotham’s air traffic is even worse than what he finds on the streets. Even at one in the morning, somehow.

Sure, Gotham International’s local traffic and the city’s proximity to other huge airline hubs gives him plenty of flying objects to avoid, even  _with_  hacking the night’s flight plans. But coming back to Gotham during redeye rush hour, avoiding other pilots when he can’t break his cover by communicating with them,  _and_  staying off the air traffic controllers’ raiders? Well, the stealth technology helps, but invisible is not the same thing as  _cannot disrupt, and therefore be detected by, passing jets._

Thankfully, he’s on good terms with someone who calculates this kind of thing for fun.

“Flight plan cleared, Batwing. You’re good to go.” The voice crackles through the plane’s speakers. It’s a small mercy Oracle isn’t using the scrambler today.

“Thanks, O. I owe you one.”

She scoffs. “You owe me  _several_.”

One of these days Dick will think about what he’s saying before he says it. Maybe. Babs isn’t a woman who takes debts lightly, especially when he’s the one she’s collecting from. It isn’t like he  _won’t_  pay up, but Dick has learned through experience that it’s a situation best avoided, if possible.

Though he’s done a lot of things recently that he would have preferred to avoid.

He suspects the repercussions from one of them will be finding him shortly.

“…speaking of which. Um. How was he while I was gone?”

Dick has known Barbara for a long time, almost since the start of all this. They’ve been so in love they could barely think about anyone but each other, and they’ve been at each other’s throats to the point where they refused to even be in the same state. Now, they’re probably friends, if anything. But even if  _she_  would only ever call them colleagues, Dick still knows her well enough to understand every type of silence in her arsenal.

Though he hasn’t heard it recently, he’s very familiar with the one that means ‘You’re an idiot, but I still like you.’ Less familiar, but far more frequent in the time since he’s taken on the cowl, is ‘You’re going to get yourself killed and, when you do, I’m going to do wheelies on your grave’. Dick hates that one.

But the silence that comes across the speakers now? It’s a very  _special_ sort of silence. One that sort of says ‘Forget wheelies and ruining your funeral, I’m going to kill you myself so I can light your corpse on fire just to watch it burn.’

Barbara’s time as Oracle really has made her a master of conveyance.

Dick clears his throat awkwardly, faking a cough that she won’t buy for a minute. “…that bad, huh?”

“Lets just say he’s lucky that, for some inexplicable reason, Canary likes him. Better hope she’s around to hold Huntress back next time, too.”

“Any injuries or property damage?” Seems about the time of year for the Wayne Foundation’s charitable donations to make up for that apology tour Batman is never going to give.

“Of course not. Do we look like amateurs to you?” She asks, offended.

No, the Birds of Prey don’t look like amateurs. They _do_ look very much like a group of women who are collectively one Damian-induced diplomacy incident away from handing Batman his ass in the middle of Robinson Park, in full view of Gotham News Network’s film crew and possibly Vicki Vale.

“I’ll make it up to you?” Dick asks, hoping against hope that the auto-destruct on the Batwing isn't about to be remotely detonated. 

“Yes, you will.  _With interest_ ,” Oracle says like she takes some sort of unholy delight in the thought of calling this one in. Just because he saw it coming, doesn’t mean Dick is going to be ready for it whenever she decides to collect in full.

“You can start by telling me  _exactly_  why you needed me to cover for you on such short notice. I know you’re impulsive, but giving me fifteen minutes heads up that Batman is leaving Gotham when there’s anything short of a Justice League call is cutting it close, even for you. And I  _know_  the Justice League wasn’t involved…”

Dick hadn’t  _really_  thought he could pin this on a surprise League mission, but being called out on considering it still hits like an elbow to the gut.

“Who told you?”

“Nope, I’m not revealing the identities of  _confidential_ _sources_ of information.”

Which really only means one thing. Damn Vic and his soft spot for tech gurus. What happened to  _Titans forever_?

“Fine, fine. You win.” Dick should probably get his story straight before he has to tell this thing ten different times. “I left to go check out a lead on those explosions and… who was behind them.” He knows better than to try to be more evasive than that with Barbara. Or she’ll remind him  _why_  it sometimes it seems like she’s actually omniscient most of the time.

“Hmm. You didn’t get the information until the explosions had already happened, and no threats of follow up attacks were issued.” He has no doubt that she’s been monitoring every domestic and international news station that she can get on her screens. Though it might be easier to list the ones that she  _can’t_ get. “So that doesn’t really give you a reason to leave on such short notice –  _without_  prep time, I might add – unless you think that the explosions had something to do with…”

“It was him.” She’d find out eventually, anyway.

Oracle sounds hesitant when she asks, “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.” Dick spits back.

“…I only ask because the Batwing is registering one occupant; only one. Where is – what happened out there?”

Dick sighs deep enough to feel it in his _bones_.

“The lead turned out to be this huge underground League stronghold outside of Istanbul. Half of it was collapsed, and by the time I got there, it had already been cleared out by Ra’s. No evidence to support the current theories as to  _why_  Tim blew the thing up in the first place – aside from it just generally being a League base… or evidence of what had happened to him. He might be…”

Dick chokes on the end of that sentence. Oracle has the grace not to call him out on it.

“He’s missing, O, and I have no idea where he is.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you asked…”

“No, not yet. And even if he  _does_ know, you know how he feels about Tim. Or, how they feel about each other, I guess. I’m still going to ask, but. I’m not hoping for much.”

She sighs. “Believe me, if he’s going to tell anyone, it’ll be you. I’d be hard for you to  _not_  be his favorite when you’re the only one he actually  _likes_.” Dick rolls his eyes. Even if he does love the little guy, he’s only mostly kidding when he says some days he’s still waiting for Damian to turn around and try killing him.  

“Not that you won’t have an obstacle or two in your way  _to_  asking him about it. You disappeared from Gotham just like that, and however you let him know about it set him off enough to make him even more of a brat than normal.” She laughs critically. “But you’re back, so it’s _your_ problem now.”

“Jeez, Babs, I’m sorry. Again. I shouldn’t have just left him like that. But I was kind of on a time limit then, you know? Ra’s people beat me there anyway, but. I just… I had to know. He’s my  _brother_ , and if something happened to him and he really is…”

His voice fades out, becoming so quiet he isn’t sure that the microphone will pick it up. “I don’t think I can do this again.”

This pause is poignant as the silence surrounding the Robin suit in the cave, even though the universe brought back its original owner.

Oracle whispers, “I know.”

He follows the rest of the flight route to a dark, unwatched section of the industrial sector before engaging the landing subroutines. Neither of them speaks.

 

**…**

Dick is only a few steps from the Batwing when a tiny ball of rage and assassin training lands on him.

The bunker is directly under Wayne Tower – no room for a subterranean landing pad with sky-access, and leaving the plane on the roof would be just a  _little_  too conspicuous. So they still use one of the Batcave’s subsidiary hangars, even if the cave itself is empty of everything but ghost-white dust covers and painful memories.

Far-flung as it is, it’s still part of the extensive cave system running under the Manor and part of Gotham, so the section of roof that isn’t slowly closing behind the Batwing’s descent is a grid of struts, stalactites, and light fixtures – perfect for setting up an ambush.

And completely obvious.

Damian  _knows_  that, and they’ve worked together too long for the kid to think Dick isn’t aware of that.

He uses the steps between the Batwing and the inevitable attack to debate if the choice in hiding location is a deliberate misstep or just Damian’s overconfidence and anger getting the better of him.

Despite his League training and startling proficiency with terrorizing Gotham’s criminals, Damian isn’t half as stealthy as he thinks he is.

But his anger is justified.

Dick lets it happen, stays loose as the kid drops down on his shoulders and brings him to the floor. He rolls away from the impact, dislodging Damian and coming to a crouch.

There are only three feet between him and a death glare that would have given Bruce a run for his money.

“Grayson! Where have you been?” He demands, standing and crossing his arms. Even in his hoodie and jeans – which Dick suspects Alfred had forced him back into after Huntress caught him - he looks every bit as intimidating as he does in a cape and spandex.

There isn’t a good way to diffuse this; just ways that will end up with him less maimed than he could have been.

“Just a recon mission, Dami." He says, prevaricating. "The heads up came in and needed a fast response.”

“That does not –”

“ _And_  your education is important. I’m not pulling you out of school for the day just to have two people on an intel gathering mission that only needs one.”

It isn’t the only reason he didn’t want Robin with him. It’s not that the kid wouldn’t have had some insight on the League’s operations at the Cradle; if it were just that and he hadn’t had to try and beat Ra’s people to the site, he would have been fine (itching out of his skin in anticipation and worry, but he could have handled that) waiting for the school day to end and doing this as a team like they’re supposed to. 

But there’s just something about bringing Robin to look for Red Robin that he knows wouldn’t sit right with any of them. He  _needs_  Damian to know that he isn’t just Dick’s replacement for Tim; that he values him as a partner and friend, and isn’t just training out of obligation to Bruce. But Damian isn’t his only partner. Tim is… was. Should be with him, working alongside Batman and Robin to protect the city that belongs to them. All of them.

Damian may feel like a replacement, but Tim feels replaced. And if Dick wants to convince him to come back, he probably shouldn’t bring the next kid wearing the Robin costume when he does it.

He’s only been on one side of that equation, but he likes to think he understands his brothers well enough to know where they’re coming from.

Sort of. Damian would probably fall on his sword before admitting to any sort of sympathy towards Tim’s position. And for the last year, Tim has been running too fast and too far for Dick to even  _try_  to get him to see the other side of it.

And the best person right now to give him insight into all this? They may be on better terms right now, but that doesn’t mean he and Jason actually  _talk_  about this sort of thing.

Then there are the parts of this mess he isn’t sure he’ll ever understand.

For example, he’s helped the Red Hood’s half-delirious ass out of enough tough scrapes to know that in the past year the guy has occasionally had help from  _Red Robin_  when the kid wasn’t abroad looking for Bruce. Because  _apparently_  Jason can’t tell the difference between Nightwing and Red after he’s lost more than two pints of blood.

Learning that Tim had been in Gotham  _multiple times_ and went out of his way to help a guy who’d tired to kill him on two separate occasions without even mentioning to his partner that he  _wasn’t on the other side of the planet?_  That stung more than a little.

After recent events, though. He probably deserves that.

Dick’s had some time, maybe too much time, to think about how things went down after he took up the cowl. He will never be able to convince himself that it was the wrong choice for Dami; the kid  _needed_  Robin to keep him stable. But there were different ways,  _better_ ways he could have done things. And as much as the R keeps Damian in one piece, losing it did something to Tim after he’d already lost so much. Keeping Damian close in favor of letting Tim drift and farther from Gotham, from  _him_ –

“That doesn’t explain  _this_.” Dick is shaken out of contemplation by a fist shoved into his field of view, the note he’d left on the console crumpling in Damian’s fingers.

Would it be karma if he were hit by flying popcorn?

“There wasn’t time to explain. Ask Oracle – I didn’t even break it down for her before I left.”

“You have been missing for nearly eleven hours! The Batwing has a communications array. What could _possibly_ have stopped you from explaining this before engaging stealth mode?”

Dick really wishes ‘I had no idea _what_ I was doing’ was a valid response here.

“It’s… complicated.”

“Un-complicate it.”

He’s learned the hard way that, with Damian, it’s better to do damage control  _now._ Before he goes digging through files and flight records and pieces it together on his own. But the kid might know something Dick won’t be able to find on his own, and he  _did_ promise Barbara.

But… telling Damian he left without notice at the drop of a hat to try and help _Tim_?

Yeah, that’s going to go over well. Better to start with the basics.

“Those explosions the day before I left?”

“We discussed this; they are League bases. Someone is targeting Grandfather.”

“Yeah. The Cradle was the point of origin – it was destroyed. Ra’s people cleared it out by the time I got there though. There was nothing left.” Or, nothing he’s going to tell Damian about right now.

The kid is seething.

“Did you not think that my  _history_  with the League would have been useful on that mission? Or consider that I may wish to go with you? You  _know_  that the ‘school’ you insist I attend is far below my abilities, and that my ‘education’ has never seemed to provide an obstacle to The Mission in the past. How did you even know the point of origin,  _or_  location of the Cradle?  _I_  certainly didn’t tell you.”

This is one of those times Dick wishes he could navigate verbal minefields as well as he can physical ones.

Where is Tim when you need him?

(Though if he knew the answer to that question, none of them would be in this mess.)

He bypasses the other questions in favor of the one he knows how to answer.

“There was a flash drive. From Tam Fox. It has data from the League – the location of the Cradle for one – and she wanted me to look into it.”

The rest… can wait. Until he has a better idea of what’s happening here. Tim’s data isn’t conclusive, and even if it  _was_ , it’s really just proof that Bruce is still out there. Nothing on how to get him back.

He wouldn’t want to get the kid’s hopes up, but he knows Damian well enough to speculate that he would deny any concern and just dismiss the data as some half-baked evidence from a former Robin on the edge.

Before he tells him, he’ll have to work on pretending he isn’t thinking exactly the same thing.

Better to wait.

But Damian is having none of it.

“You received the location of the Cradle, one of the League of Assassin’s most heavily guarded secrets, known only to those stationed there and Ra’s closest allies… from  _Tamara Fox,_ ” He says. It isn't a question so much as an accusation.

Well, when you put it like that.

“She was in the Cradle right before it exploded. She, um. She was there with Tim. When he blew it up.” Dick forces himself to meet Damian’s blank stare.

“Grayson," Damian starts, "You seem to have taken leave of your senses.”

The pause is poignant, as if Damian is waiting for Dick to tell him that this is just another example of American humor that doesn’t translate through his frame of reference.

“Unless you are  _actually_  trying to convince me that someone as pathetic as  _Drake_  managed to defeat my Grandfather and destroy the majority of the League’s infrastructure in  _one night_?”

“Er, yes? There’s no way to tell for sure, but Tam seems to think that Ra’s gave Tim access to his computer systems and Tim used that to bring down the League.” Or, that’s what he’s managed to piece together from Tam and Pru’s accounts of what happened.

“Tt. Drake is useless, but I highly doubt that Grandfather would risk giving  _anyone_  that kind of unfettered access. Though, let us assume for the sake of argument that you are correct. If Drake  _were_  the one who managed to bring destruction upon the League, why is he not here to gloat about it?”

There is no easy answer to that.

“He’s… missing. Tam came back without him.” And hopefully Damian won’t go out of his way to interrogate her about it. At least until Dick can track down a few leads and convince the kid that no, it is not appropriate for you to be happy that Tim might be –

“He’s dead.”

“Damian!”

The indifferent expression doesn’t shift an inch.

“If what you say is true, Grandfather would not suffer him to live after defying his will in such a manner. But I cannot  _fathom_  why he would have been working with Drake in the first place.”

Therein lies the problem. Dick doesn’t know  _what_  Ra’s al Ghul wants with Tim, with the information that Bruce may be alive, with  _any of it_.

A lot of Bruce’s enemies would have gone to distressing lengths to make sure that  _they_ were the ones to kill him; Dick’s even seen Batman pull that one on the Joker a few times when it plays to his benefit. So, that data might just be Ra’s making good on his promise to be the one responsible for finally destroying ‘the Detective.’ Though bringing him back just to kill him again seems a little much, even for Ra’s al Ghul.

Dick can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to this. Here and now, he can’t see what that could possibly be. Though Dick has a bad feeling he’s going to find out. For now…

He doesn’t want to ask, even if he desperately needs to know. There is a nascent idea forming with all the sharpness of a knife in his gut, but he can’t afford to work off of  _just_  his hunches here.

He has to bite this bullet eventually.

“Damian," he asks, "What would happen if Tim  _was_  responsible, and Ra’s wanted him alive? Where would your grandfather be keeping him?”

Damian shifts on his feet. Dick is surprised to see the kid look almost anxious behind the crossed arms and icy glare.

“Even at his best, Drake would be unable escape his wrath. However, if my Grandfather truly decided not to kill him, there is only one place that escaped the destruction where he would risk keeping a prisoner.”

Dick can barely breathe, like someone’s caught his lungs in a vise that tightens with every word from Damian’s mouth. He thinks he knows what’s coming.

“Nanda Parbat,” Damian says, like it's obvious.

It is, in a way. He bites back a curse.

The League stronghold to end all League strongholds. He hasn’t been there, doesn’t know where it is, and…

Bruce never put the location in the database to keep anyone else from trying to go.

_Too dangerous_ , he’d said, like a man who didn’t risk his life ending gang wars and fighting homicidal clowns while dressed like a bat.

It had taken Dick several years of cajoling and more than one shared life or death experience to talk Bruce into telling him just the  _name_  of the place he’d trained before becoming Batman. The place he and Talia had…

Nanda Parbat. An entire  _city_  run by the League of Assassins, full of their agents and those sympathetic to their cause. The closest thing Ra’s al Ghul has to a sovereign state.

And Bruce had only gotten in because Ra’s wanted something from him.

“Damian… do you remember much? From your time there, I mean. Where it is, or how to get in?”

Damian is verging on visibly uncomfortable. Dick is right there with him. They’re going to have to talk about this later – about Tim and what he was doing why it would be in Damian’s best interests to help Dick try and break into the assassin capital of the world.

“I – no.” Damian starts, uncharacteristically hesitant. “It is in Southern Asia, but details of the location are unknown to me. I only spent my first few years in Nanda Parbat, before I truly began to train as Grandfather’s heir. The rest were spent moving between bases with Mother. I have not returned since.”

Dick fights the urge to wrap his little brother in a hug. If only to make up for all the ones he never got growing up. It’s a trend with Robins, it seems.

A location would be better, but knowing the continent and which subsection to be looking in? It’s better than nothing. And if Ra’s kept Tim alive instead of killing him, they have some time to work with that information. To formulate a plan instead of rushing in blindly and, most likely, getting themselves killed in the attempt.

Bruce would…

No. What would _any_ of them do when one of their own is captured? Go in guns blazing (not literally, Jason) and take back what’s theirs. It’s just not an option without a way in, or, really,  _a location_.

But there’s a reason Batman is known for  _prep time_. Bruce would be patient because all the gear and tactical experience in the world won’t keep them alive (keep  _Tim_  alive) if they don’t go in with a decent plan.

Forewarned is forearmed, and other clichés that Dick wouldn’t have to live by if he were still in the black and blue.

Damian isn’t looking at him. Instead he stares out into the middle ground of the hanger, subdued like he’s expecting to be disciplined for _not knowing_ , even though he has no control over that.

Internally, Dick hopes that the League won’t be able to get Ra’s to a Lazarus Pit the next time he needs one.

“Hey, it’s okay” Dick says, reaching forward to put a hand on Damian’s shoulder in some small attempt at comfort. He stops, hand frozen in midair by Damian’s glower when the kid shifts away.     

“Grayson," he says. The chill in his voice is only  _just_  above zero kelvin. "There will not be a repeat of today. If you truly decide to pursue this course of action – although I  _strongly_ advise against it – do not think yourself capable of stripping me of agency in my decision to accompany you.”

And if Dick had ever said something like that to Bruce (had he?), the man would have had any number of reactions, ranging from an uncompromising ‘no, you won’t’ to just walking out without another word.

Bruce isn’t here.

And Dick always told himself that if he had to be Batman, he’d be a better one.

“I know, Dami,” he says. “And I wouldn’t – I’ll need you with me in Nanda Parbat, watching my back. I’m… I’m sorry for leaving without telling you. It was irresponsible of me and unfair to you.”

It feels almost… wrong to say it while still wearing parts of the Batsuit. Bruce’s legacy, weighing heavy on his shoulders. But he isn’t Bruce, and the words sound right to him, cowl or no.

Damian’s crossed arms tighten, and for a second Dick thinks his apology is going to bounce off the sharp lines of the kid’s downturned mouth.

“Tt. Just don’t do it again.” Damian says, instead, before turning to stomp away. He marches up to the door of the Bunker-access tunnel like the cape of the Robin uniform is trailing behind him.

Dick won’t, if he can help it. But before they even get to that point, he needs some confirmation on Daiman’s intel, and there’s only one person in Gotham who he trusts enough to tell him something like that.

Though ‘trust’ is a bit of a strong word to apply to his relationship with Jason these days.

Dick sighs and follows Damian to the waiting bikes.

They have work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential trigger warning for a panic attack in this chapter. Also, you know, what basically amounted to a failed attempt to die for the cause. 
> 
> Tim should probably see professional help.


	4. Scars

Tim comes to with a deep, pained groan and no idea where he is.  _Again_.

This is getting old. Quickly.

At least this time he seems to be on something soft and definitively non-muscly. Too soft.

He jolts, eyes snapping open and body shooting upright despite the lingering protest of his muscles.

With the motion, everything spins. Tim grits his teeth, trying to will away his disorientation with the determination of a vigilante who is planning to  _personally_  destroy every cache of sedatives the League of Assassins owns.

Though, he notes through the clearing haze of drugs,  _not_  waking up within ten feet of Ra’s is always a plus.

Waking up in a bed that that creep probably owns  _and_  knows the location of… less so.

At least the room seems to be free of guards and visible cameras, though he’ll have to do a more thorough sweep for well-hidden ones. That is, once he can talk his muscles into maneuvering him off of the bed.

In their defense, that  _is_ a _lot_ of bed to get across.

He isn’t really sure what to call a mattress once it gets past  _king sized_. It’s still too small to fit Ra’s ego, though, so _that’s_ out as far as names go.

Through the gaps in the partially drawn canopy curtains, he glances around to scope out the room. It’s nice.  _Very_ nice. And that’s coming from Tim, who has spent the majority of his life surrounded by one sort of opulence or another. There may possibly be enough gold filigree in here to keep WE’s R&D department running for a year. No small feat, considering what Tim used to get up to whenever Lucius let him into the lab afterhours. When he was still welcome in Gotham.

He winces, shaking his head to dislodge both the thought and the chill that sweeps across his bones. There are much more immediate problems.

Like why the fuck he’s  _here_  instead of in a dungeon, a cave, or somewhere else appropriately sinister. You know, unlike an overly decorated bedroom that looks like something the League of Assassins listed on Airbnb.

Ra’s didn’t even chain him to the bed, and, considering the way Tim woke up the first time, that’s honestly a little surprising.

From where he’s sitting, the double doors look heavy, old. Even if Ra’s hasn’t posted guards outside, moving that thing is going to draw a lot of attention.

The only other door to the room looks like it leads to an adjoined washroom, but across from that… bingo. Also,  _seriously?_

Ra’s left him unsupervised, without guards or chains, in a room with a  _balcony_.

Even  _he_  can’t be arrogant enough to think this is an effective way to keep Tim in one place. So… obviously a trap.

He wonders what it says about him that he’s going to go for it anyway.

The bed’s size makes shuffling across it a little awkward. It’s a bit bigger than the one he used to sleep on at Wayne Manor and  _much_  bigger than whatever assorted cots and bedrolls he’s been passing out on for the last year of working for Ra’s. If he’d known that all he had to do to get a decent thread count was destroying most of the League’s bases, he would have done it  _ages_  ago.

Finally making it to the edge, Tim tentatively extends his feet downwards. They sink into the plush rug with little resistance.

Now, the hard part.

He shifts forward, placing more of his weight on his legs. The muscles strain from abuse; having to – Tim’s face colors with delayed embarrassment – fight a bunch of completely clothed ninjas while  _naked_  tends to do that. Not that he really… remembers that part. Clearly, at least. He remembers waking up, but he’s still drawing a blank on how he ended up standing in a circle of knocked out ninjas, experiencing conspicuous and sudden nudity.

He is, at least, wearing clothing now. Though he’s trying very hard not to think about who put it on him.

It may be the first time he actually  _wishes_  Jason were around to provide sarcastic commentary. It might be scathing (and, though Tim would never admit it, objectively pretty funny), but right about now it would be really nice to have someone who knew what the fuck was happening.

Other than, you know, Ra’s al Ghul. Who might be coming to check on his captive vigilante sooner rather than later. Tim redoubles his efforts.

The sedative must be mostly out of his system because, barring a little bit of swaying quickly rectified by grabbing on to the high bedpost, the rest of his attempt to stand passes without incident.

He shuffles across the rug-dominated floor –  _without_ needing to hold on to anything, thank you very much – and suppresses a shiver as he steps onto cool flagstones at the edge of the balcony. The wide gossamer curtains let in just enough light and form to make out the shape, but not much else. He shifts them to the side, binding the drapes with a waiting tie just in case he has to use them strangle a waiting ninja.

As it turns out, he does not.

His first thought when he steps onto the balcony is that Ra’s should really have put guards out here.

His second thought is  _holy fuck._

Because, yes, Ra’s owns fortresses, palaces, and entire goddamn cave systems all across the world. But this is something else.

Beyond and beneath the balcony, buildings sprawl out for miles. They have the varying heights and – from what he can see – purposes that he would expect from a medium-sized city. But. This isn’t any city like he’s ever seen before. There’s a sort of… uniformity to the design. Absolutely nothing looks out of place; as if a single, obsessively detail-oriented architect were given autonomy over every inch of the place.

_No shit_ , Tim thinks, because  _that’s exactly what this is._

On all sides – or at least the ones he can see from here – the edges of the city are closed off by high stone walls. Beyond them, steep cliffs and snowy peaks. Like the city is tucked in the hollow between two mountains. Tactically, it isn’t a bad choice. The sheer rock walls provide good natural barriers to keep enemies from approaching on all sides. Unfortunately for Tim, it also means he had no idea where he is, not helped by the fact that he didn’t even know this place  _existed_  before he woke up.

None of…  _any of_   _this_  was in the League’s databases.  _What the fuck, Ra’s._

He takes another moment to stare, trying to memorize the logic of the street plan and the best way to scale those walls. The dark specks in the distance are probably patrolling ninja, but the people far below him either aren’t on duty or aren’t Ra’s foot soldiers. Too many colors in their clothing.

Without a grapple or a line, he doesn’t like his chances of getting down. And there aren’t nearly enough pieces of fabric in the room to go the cliché route and tie them together. At least, not enough to get him down what he estimates is a fifteen-story drop.

He turns around. The wall behind him – the part that isn’t taken up by the curtained archway - is made of stone. Well maintained, certainly, but the gaps between the stones might be just wide enough to…

Tim is halfway through determining how scale-able the exterior wall is when the doors bang open. Literally. Heavy wood  _thunks_  loudly against the interior’s masonry, echoing through the room. Someone who hadn’t been trained by Batman might have jumped out of their skin.

He’s expecting some sort of grand, dramatic entrance. It wouldn’t be, in his experience, entirely unrealistic for Ra’s to have servants fling the doors open in anticipation of his approach. And Tim didn’t have to spend a year working for a guy who calls himself 'the Demon’s Head' to  _know_  that he's a drama queen. An egotistical, unrepentantly homicidal drama queen who can’t seem to stay dead, but still. Drama queen.

Only, it isn’t Ra’s bursting into his room, green cloak draping around him impressively, demanding whatever it is he wants from Tim  _this_ time.

Back in the jeans and tank he hasn’t seen much of since before they started running tactical ops together, customary spiked jacket nowhere to be seen, Pru steps in to the room. She seems out of place, moving forward and looking around frantically, until her eyes settle on Tim sort-of maybe trying to escape. The doors slam shut behind her.

For just a moment – before remembering she’s interrupting his chance at getting out of here – the only thing Tim can think of is that he’s extremely, perhaps absurdly, grateful she isn’t buried beneath a rockslide in Turkey.

For that same moment, unguarded eyes reflect the sentiment back at him.

It’s a long time before either of them speaks.

Tim breaks eye contact first. Looks at where the doors have impacted the walls, thinks about the way Pru’s weight shifted into that first step. “Do you think Ra’s is going to be happy about you kicking his doors?” He asks, not really looking for an answer.

He gets one anyway.

“Don’t care.” Pru says, brusque and final.

She’s always been a charmer.

“And it was too much effort just to  _knock_?” Tim’s almost afraid she’s here to physically drag him to Ra’s – over his objections, if necessary. It wouldn’t be unusual, considering their history.

In that year, there hadn’t been any question about who she ( _they_ ) worked for, but loyalties that started defined by strict lines began to blur as time went on. By the end of it, he had been surprised but pleased to be able to call her a friend.

But now – staring at her across a bedroom he’d been put in while drugged, somewhere in an entire city that had probably been designed by Ra’s al Ghul, having effectively just learned she’s  _alive_  – Tim has no idea where they stand. And as glad as he is to see her again, this has the potential to go very wrong, very quickly.

Right up until it doesn’t.

Pru laughs. It’s a sudden, startling sound, but if feels so familiar that the tension in the room dissipates like a chill in strong sunlight. She smirks, cocking her hip. Too much time spent together and, occasionally, liberal amounts of alcohol have taught Tim what’s inevitably coming next.

“Mhm, worried I’ll walk in on you while you’re changing, handsome?” She purrs out, raking her eyes down the overly decorative tunic and loose-fitting pants he’d woken up in.

Tim rolls his eyes. Pru laughs again.

He missed this.

If someone had told him when he was Robin that getting hit on by one of Ra’s al Ghul’s assassins would be a highlight of his day, he probably would have questioned what  _else_  had happened that was so much worse. It’s a thought he still gets sometimes, even though he’s been unwillingly removed from his original mantle and forced into the shadows by his search.

In the last year, he’s lived in more shades of gray than Robin could even imagine, but Red Robin?

Tim doesn’t know where the last few days have left him. That flash drive should have reached Dick by now, along with Tam’s news that Tim is… that he…

He served his purpose. His death saved Gotham, saved the people he loves. And when Dick brings Bruce back, things in the city will go back to normal. The family will be back together again, and Tim… He doesn’t know where he’ll be, now. Where the intervention of the Lazarus Pit leaves him.

He’d originally planned to find proof that Bruce was alive  _and_ figure out a way to bring him back. But after that? He hadn’t been planning to stick around.

Dick is finally back in Gotham for good, and he and Damian have made it perfectly clear that Tim has no place there. Between those two and Alfred, Bruce will have the support system he needs to get back on his feet.

And Tim would have worried, not being there to help if Bruce needed it, but everything would have turned out all right for them.

But then he went to Paris. Got caught in a war between the League and the Council, with the knowledge that any misstep would put Gotham right in Ra’s crosshairs. It was a change in parameters; a paradigm shift in his approach to the entire situation.

In that cave in Iraq, he  _knew_ what he had to do. With the right evidence, Dick could be convinced Bruce was alive  _and_ have enough information to eventually bring him back, if not an immediate solution for doing so. With the right strategy, Tim could play the League and the Council against each other, destroying both in the process. Ra’s penchant for vengeance was a bit harder to counter, but Tim has always liked a challenge. And in the end, it all came together perfectly:

Shatter the Council, destroy the League, and eliminate Ra’s motivation to target Gotham.

Tie up any unwanted, loose ends.

It worked … until it didn’t. He hadn’t  _expected_  Ra’s to put him in the Lazarus Pit.

A sudden movement in his field of view shakes him out of it.

“…to talk to you. Hey. Earth to Red – you in there?”

Maybe that sedative isn’t as gone as he thought since Pru is suddenly right in front of him, mid-sentence, waving a hand in his face. He shakes his head, willing the thoughts away. He can deal with the Gotham issue later (or, preferably, never) if he makes it out of here alive. Operative, and potentially problematic word being ‘if.’

“Yeah. Yes, I’m here. I’m fine.” She gives him a look like she doesn’t buy that for a  _second_ , but Tim deflects before she can even  _think_  about trying to bully anything out of him.

It isn’t the  _safest_  topic, but it’s better than the one he’s avoiding, and he  _does_ have to know…“Um, Pru. How did you get out? It didn’t seem like there was enough time to get to the surface without a grappling line.”

The question is a little blunt, but he’s honestly curious. And worried. Tim had  _wanted_  her to get out, but, in retrospect, hadn’t really made that probable with his time constraints. In his defense, he was a  _little_  preoccupied at the time, but. He hadn’t realized  _that_ was a potential ramification of his plan until he saw her standing in front of him again.

“ _Thanks_  for that by the way, arsehole.” Pru spits out. Tim winces, his apology probably written all over his face as she says, “Ended up in a hallway off the main room, trapped by some rubble and a shite blast door. Got out well enough in the end, but I had to take the  _long_  way around after you fucking blew up the place up. Or I woulda gotten here sooner to see your sorry arse.”

What exactly she means by ‘the long way around,’ Tim has no idea. The Cradle was outside of Istanbul, but he has no idea where they are  _now_  except that it’s somewhere pretty high above sea level. And mountainous.

The city itself provides few clues: though the buildings appear mainly Tibetan in style, they seem to take a few cues from early Isfahni architecture. Here and there a handful of Western elements are visible.

And who knows  _where_ Ra’s would even decide to build something like that.

Future, non-drugged Tim will look back on this moment immediately facepalm. Because while Pru is occasionally inclined to giving away more information than she strictly has to, that isn’t really the case when he abandons every subtle interrogation method he knows and, point blank, asks her, “Er, actually. Where are we? And how many people do I have to fight to get out?”

Pru laughs, this time distinctly  _at_  him. “Mmh, you can do better than that, Birdy. You just wake up or something?”

Unfortunately, spending most of a year working closely with someone tends to give them uncanny insight into your mannerisms. And awareness of when you’re apparently still too out of it to be properly evasive about asking questions.

“Here,” She continues, pushing him back until he’s sitting on the bed. “You need another minute to shake off whatever shite they put in you. An’ I gotta make sure you aren’t  _too_  beat up after the kinda morning you had.”

“And what kind of morning would that be?”

“The kind that ends with fourteen grunts in the infirmary. Apparently you looked good enough doin’ it that Ra’s didn’t even kill them.” She punches him lightly on the shoulder. “Heh, know what that means, Birdy? That I’m bringin’ you with me next time I hit a rave.” He wouldn’t be surprised.

It’s a pretty fair assessment, based on the flashes of what Tim remembers. It also confirms his suspicions that she was briefed and sent in here rather than spearheading some kind of breakout operation.

Except, there’s one  _glaring omission_ she didn’t quiet mention. Tim may not remember much of that fight, but waking up in a  _Lazarus Pit_  is a little harder to forget. Even if he wishes it wasn’t.

Pru must sense the shift in his mood, because she stops her pointless triage to sit next to him on the bed, one arm resting across his shoulders in the closest thing to physical affection he’s ever seen from her.

“Hey.” She says, the word slightly stilted. This is terra incognita for both of them.

Tim doesn’t really want to talk about it. And Pru? Pru reports to Ra’s under the parameters of some mysterious orders that Tim  _still_  hasn’t managed to get out of her. And hard as he tried, during the last year he hadn’t been able to play his cards as closely to his chest as he would have preferred.

That’s a two-way road though, and somewhere in the year between Pru trying to kill him with submachine guns and Tim almost getting her killed in an explosion, they built something bridging the space between their respective issues. Unlike most of Tim’s body had been, the connection doesn’t feel like it was destroyed when the Cradle came down on their heads.

Pru is his friend, and possibly the last friend he has who doesn’t think he’s crazy (one of the last who’s still  _alive_ ).

Losing the mantle, holding firm to the truth that Bruce is still out there, and a year spent living in shades of grey most heroes are uncomfortable with: all things that tend to play havoc with relationships built on trust, justice, and bitching about Lex Luthor. Not that Ra’s assorted ninjas and assassins aren’t down with that last part; inter-villain wars are absolutely a  _thing_.

But this is… heavy. Especially for them. They may have gotten close in the last year, but it isn’t the kind of close where he can share his fears without reservation or have no reason to doubt that she would keep them quiet.

It’s been… too long, really. Since he was last able to communicate like that with someone. For the thousandth time since he found that broken body bleeding out in an impact crater, Tim wishes Kon were here to hold him.

“Pru,” He finally asks, wishing he could hold off the inevitable for longer. “…do you have a mirror?”

“Uh. Sure.” She stands, taking the few steps from the bed to the end table. “Worried you’re not so pretty anymore, Birdy? Personally, I like my men with a few more scars, but I think ya still got it.”

Pru looks back at him, holding out the small mirror like a peace offering. When he takes it but doesn’t answer, she turns back to the table. The sound of shifting gauze and the clink of glass bottles is slow and methodical.

Upside of the Lazarus Pit: no wounds to bandage. Downside? It’s much harder to pretend to be distracted by locating the right medical supplies.

Tim leans back against the headboard but thinks better of it when the ornate detail work invariably finds the most uncomfortable places to stab his spine. Since Pru isn’t going to leave, but thankfully doesn’t look like she’s going to comment, he reaches for one of the overstuffed pillows scattered across the bed. May as well make himself comfortable.

He stares down at the canopy reflected in the mirror’s glass. Tim isn’t sure how much time passes before he convinces himself to raise it and look.

The face staring back is clearly his – the Lazarus Pit doesn’t physically change someone  _that_ much. But there’s just something  _off_  about it, something that sets his skin tingling and sends a cold chill up his spine.

It isn’t the hair – though that’s part of it – he’s seen Jason without his helmet often enough to know to expect the bone-white lock brushing across his forehead.

It’s just that...

Pru wasn’t kidding.

There is no scar on his neck where the Red Hood tried to slit his throat. The same can be said for the thin line that one of Shiva’s knives carved in his left forehead. He can’t see the web of silvery, healed cuts where Bane broke a window with Robin’s face. The place where Dick busted his lip in training that never quite healed right is completely blank. Perfect, unmarred skin everywhere.

A quick check beneath overly ornate clothing reveals more of the same nothing.

It’s all gone: the history of his training, the struggles he underwent to earn and  _keep_  the R. The way he had to survive on his own after he lost it, the scar from where he lost his  _spleen_. Every fight he’s had with his enemies, his allies, and everyone in between.

A lifetime, washed away. To make space for a new one.

He wonders if this was one of the reasons why Jason felt so abandoned.

The mirror stares back accusingly.

“You’re lucky, ya know.” Pru flops across the end of the bed not occupied by his outstretched legs, the medical supplies in even more disarray than when she started.

He looks over at her incredulously.

“Most don’t survive it. The Demon’s pretty selective about who he puts in the Pit – but I’ve never seen anyone come outta there… er,  _normal_. Most’a them go barmy when he pulls ‘em out. Like, your little game of whack-a-mole with the ninjas, but worse; they don’t stop. Or they do, but only to start eating the bodies like some sorta Walking Dead shite. Either way, always ends in blood and guts all over the place; and we have’ta put ‘em down before they get outta hand.”

She shifts to her back, staring into the distance through the bed’s canopy. “Guess you did us a favor not leaving all that blood to scrub up. And don’t get me wrong, I’m  _glad_ it didn’t bring you back as some sorta zombie, but…”

The last time Pru spoke this quietly, her larynx had been sliced.

“I know things got bloody rough near the end. Know ‘bout what you thought you had to do. Hell, you might’a even been right ‘bout that, knowing Ra’s. But.”

She turns her head to look at him, face a mess of uncanny seriousness. “Birdy, what happened down in the Cradle, just… just promise me you won’t do that again. Ever.”

It’s a promise that Tim as the Robin wearing green – before his Dad and Stephanie, before Bart, before  _Conner_  – would have made in a heartbeat.

“You know I can’t…”

“ _Please_ , Tim.” Somewhere past the buzz in his own brain, he realizes that she’s managed to put the first time she’s asked him for something and the first time she’s used his real name in the same sentence. In any other circumstances, he’d almost be impressed.

Pru continues, “You  _know_  he’s just gonna put you in the Pit again if somethin’ happens. And it’s a dangerous job for everyone, but going out of your way like that? I ain’t got it in me to see you go back in that water and come out as something else.”

He looks her dead in the eyes. “That boat might have sailed already, Pru.”

“Oh, come on Birdy. We’re  _talking_  right now, ain’t we?”

He feels frustration welling up inside of him. She doesn’t  _get_ it. “It’s not that easy, Pru. You can’t expect me to come  _back_ like that, after everything and…” And maybe there isn’t really much  _to_  get for someone who’s apparently only ever seen zombies come out of Lazarus Pits. But there isn’t anyone else.

“I’ve  _seen_ the Pit bring someone back,” Tim insists. “Not as themselves, but  _different_. Angrier, hell-bent on revenge. It wasn’t pretty, and it almost got me killed more than once. Even if I’m not going on a rampage right now…what if I’m like… I can’t– ” Pru is staring at him intently, wary like she’s ready to jump backwards off the bed at a moment’s notice. It might not be a bad idea, either.

Tim looks down. In the mirror, his expression is twisted into something ugly and alien; a look of desperation he’s never seen on his face before – not when his parents left for months on end, traveling all over the world.  _Certianly_  not after Batman trained him to face down Gotham’s most dangerous villains with complete control over his emotions. But the proof of it stares back at him in his reflection. He can see the green seeping into the edges of his irises, like a promise that if he just lets go…

The mirror shatters on the wall by the balcony. Tim yanks his hand back as if burned by its arc across the room. He curls in on himself, shaking.

Out of the corner of his eye, Pru sits up from where she’d been lying across the foot of the bed. “Hey, hey…” Pru says like she’s talking to a wounded animal. “You gotta calm down, you’re gonna hurt yourself.” The  _you’re going to hurt me_  goes unspoken.

He flinches away from her outstretched hand.

“Sorry. It’s fine. I’m… fine.”

“An’ I’m Wonder Woman.” Pru sighs, crossing her legs and slumping next to him until she’s nearly leaning into his shoulder.

“This guy you know, the one that came outta the Pit. How’d it… end.”

“It’s been a few years now, since – well. He’s fine, most days. He’d been ok for a long time, but back when Batman… disappeared, the first guy in the cowl left messages for the rest of us. I don’t know what he said to him – don’t want to – but whatever it was set him off. Almost died trying to talk him down.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Think you ‘almost’ die more than is healthy, Red.”

“So I’ve been told.” Tim chuckles, the faint edge of humor seeping back into his voice. “Gets me hazard pay, though.” Pru elbows him in the side, more gently than he would have expected from her.

They let the lighter atmosphere sit for a moment, staving off the inevitability of the current situation and their respective rolls.

Finally, Pru huffs out a short, annoyed breath.

“You know why I’m here.”

“…yes.” It wasn’t a question.

“And you know I don’t have a choice in it?”

Tim doesn’t respond, just tries to will the League and this entire goddamn city out of existence.

“Before Bats died, you said that that friend of yours sounds found a way to make it work, most of the time anyway. And you know that the Demon has more experience with this sorta thing than anyone else on the bloody planet. Maybe the meeting won’t be so bad… maybe he can help.”

Tim turns to glare. Ra’s trying to ‘help’ is how he got into this mess in the first place.

“I blew up his shit and got myself killed without him having to even go out of his way to do it himself. Thought that settled our debts, but  _apparently_  not.” Tim flops back onto the bed, crossing his arms over his eyes. “I didn’t ask for this. I don’t  _want_ this. And I don’t need his  _help_  when all of this is his fault in the first place.”

Pru hums, verging on annoyance. It feels like the most normal tone of voice he’s heard from her in the last twenty minutes.

“Look, Birdy. Accept the offer or don’t. You gotta talk to him eventually either way. But don’t put it on me if you’re gonna let yourself go on some sorta murder rampage. If you start eatin’ people – unless it’s in the fun way – I’m staying the fuck away from all that.”

Tim groans at… everything she just said really. Leave it to Pru to issue a threat, a warning, and an innuendo in the space of one statement.

She stands from the bed, hands on her hips. “Up and at ‘em, Birdy. You’ve got an appointment.”

He gives himself another thirty seconds to try and calm the fuck down before he gets up and follows her out of the room.

 

…

Tim likes to think he knows what to expect from Ra’s fortress: sprawling rooms, everything gilded, and more ninja than Tim had thought realistically existed before he’d put on the cape.

Wherever this is lives up to expectations… until it doesn’t.

By the time they reach their destination, Tim has counted three lefts, two rights, and a counterclockwise walk halfway around the third floor of an open-air courtyard. Not necessarily in that order.

It’s very well lit, for an assassin stronghold. Electricity and everything, with recessed lights highlighting the golden accents of the vaulted ceilings.

When Tim tells Pru he was expecting torches, she just stares at him, deadpanning, “It’s the fucking twenty first century, Red. An’ where the fuck do you think we’d get the wood for that?”

Which is a fair question. Snowcaps like the ones outside the first room’s balcony don’t exactly occur  _below_  the tree line.

Even though there  _are_ trees. They’re just… inside the fortress. Apparently.

Most of the hallways are furnished with some sort of plants, but the first floor of the courtyard is completely  _filled_  with greenery. Not just the sort of alpine growth he would think had a  _chance_  of surviving here, but things that realistically shouldn’t: Ferns, tropical flowers, and the sorts of trees he’s never seen outside of a damn rainforest dominate the center area. It’s all… a little wilted, to be honest, but the fact that they’re here  _at all_  is pretty damn impressive.

He asks Pru for clarification on the how and, really, the  _why_ of it, but she just shrugs, saying, “We’ve got a good contractor” by way of explanation, like seeing orchids growing in a snowy, mountainous climate is completely normal.

Though, now that Tim thinks about it, he hadn’t exactly been  _cold_  on that balcony. Snowy mountains in the distance and no sleeves to speak of, and he’d felt perfectly fine. Comfortable, even.

Tim’s money is on some sort of high-tech environmental manipulation field, even if that still doesn’t explain most of the plants.

Just because temperature is  _pleasant_ for him, doesn’t mean it’s anywhere  _near_  warm enough to support tropical flora. But he _has_ seen something like this before. Been strangled by it, even. He makes a mental note to remember to look over his shoulder for more than just ninjas.

The greenery dwindles as they reach wherever Pru is taking him. Plants or no plants, the rest of building is just as ornate as the room they’d started in.

The doors they stop in front of are no exception. They swing open into the waiting room, pulled wide by an unseen force, well-oiled hinges silencing their arc.

Ra's is expecting them.

What a surprise.

Whoever did the pulling has vanished by the time they step into the room, disappearing  _somewhere_  despite the only moderate amount shadows clinging to the edges of the room.

It doesn’t look – contrary to Tim’s expectations – like any sort of formal reception room. It there’s going to be a beat down, he doesn’t really care what setting it’s going to happen in, but it’s good to know the layout ahead of time in case he needs to get some furniture between himself and Ra’s before the swords come out.

Not that the room has much of that.

It’s more of a glorified… dojo, really. Empty wooden floor, recessed lighting, and enough weaponry mounted on the wall to give  _Batman_  a tough time.

Shit.

The tunic is surprisingly armored, but the pants…

The paneled wall opposite of Tim and Pru slides open; no bonus points for guessing why. He isn’t sure if Ra’s was waiting for them to show up and lurked outside the door to create a more dramatic entrance, or if his timing really is  _that_  good.

“Detective,” Ra’s purrs, all too much like the cat who’s caught the canary (or, the Red Robin, so to speak), “It is good to see you sufficiently awake.” He comes to a stop about ten feet from where Pru and Tim are standing.

“No thanks to you.” Tim says, scowling. It doesn’t  _look_  like he has any weapons on him, but that wall isn’t too far away and Ra's can move  _fast_  for someone who’s over six feet of Bruce-level muscle and older than the current and former Titans’ members  _combined_.

Ra’s just smiles, if you can call it that. “You may go now, Prudence. Do not stray too far.”

She bows – actually  _bows_  – and fades into wherever those door pullers went. Maybe later she’ll show him where the secret passages are, if he annoys her enough.

Without her there, Tim feels oddly exposed.

Ra’s, not bothering with further conversation or any sort of subtlety, walks to the wall of weapons. He isn’t wearing the cloak. Tim follows, if only to get a better shot at defending himself from whatever’s coming next.

He looks… almost contemplative, by the time Tim gets there. Though if Tim were hundreds of years old, he’d probably space out on occasion too. He has no intention of verbalizing that; Tim doesn’t want to die for something as stupid as forgetting to turn on his brain-to-mouth filter around Ra's.

He’s almost humming the Jeopardy theme song under his breath when Ra’s finally –  _finally_  – does something… which is apparently reaching to the wall and pulling off a bo staff. And handing it to Tim, who almost startles and drops it because just. What?

It’s identical to the one he  _knows_  was destroyed in the Cradle. Perfectly balanced, too.

_What the fuck, Ra’s_  is still at the top of his list for summaries of his life right now.

For his part, the Ra's selects two curved, wickedly sharp scimitars before returning to the center of the room. No surprises there.

Again, Tim follows, looking for any sort of escape route he might have missed in preparation for when this all goes inevitably, horribly wrong.

They stand on opposite ends of the room’s delineated sparring ring for a full minute before Tim breaks the silence.

“Why am I here, Ra’s?” He asks like the cryptic bastard is ever actually going to give him a straight answer to that question.

Ra’s chuckles, making no secret of  _exactly_  how much he’s enjoying Tim’s discomfort. “Have you yet to determine the answer to that question, Timothy? Perhaps I am too hasty in my use of the moniker.”

It would probably help if he knew  _why_  Ra’s was using it in the first place. ‘The Detective’ has always been Bruce, as far as Tim is concerned.

“Let’s just assume that I know already, but I’m nice enough to let you gloat about it.”

Ra’s eyes him critically. “Very well,  _Detective_.” He could probably give Tim some competition for gold in the sarcasm Olympics.

His mouth splits in a patronizing crescent of too-white teeth - and suddenly he’s  _moving_.

The left sword swings in an opening attack, Tim ducking frantically out of the way in a mental litany of swears.

There is a  _reason_  Bruce tried to avoid one-on-one fights with Ra’s al Ghul. A lifetime of training, of  _mastering_  every known form of martial arts is nothing compared to the centuries of practice accumulated by the guy who  _invented some of them_.

And Bruce was  _Batman_.

Tim doesn’t stand a chance.

Ra’s forces him out of the duck and backwards with the right sword. Tim rolls to a standing position; knees bent, he readies the staff.

He sees the attack a millisecond after it begins.

Ra’s pulls the swords up, bringing both of them together and cuts  _down_  in a swing aimed to cut Tim in half. He just  _barely_  brings the bo up in time to catch their arc, grunting with the effort of holding back his opponent's raw strength.

Ra’s looks him in the eyes, smirk bearing down on Tim in time with the swords.

“Timothy. You are here because I wish you to be.” He says, like that’s any sort of explanatory.

Tim shifts the bo, slipping to the side and letting Ra’s momentum pull the him out of the lock. He tries to hit the back of the Ra’s knee with the end of the staff, but finds the swing stopped by a sword that wasn’t there the second before.

Weapons connecting at a point of tension, Ra’s starts them in a slow circle across the sparring ring; waiting for one of them to slip. His voice worms its way into Tim’s ears, trying to throw him off his game.

“With the exception of your mentor, it has been a long time since an opponent of mine showed such tenacity and  _dedication_  in their struggle against the will of the Demon’s Head. Longer still since any of them managed to avert their inevitable failure and so  _thoroughly_ subvert my plans.”

Tim breaks the rotation, but his downward swing is caught against the hilt of the  _other_  sword. He jumps pack to try and use the bo staff’s greater reach, but Ra’s presses his advantage, pulling in close and drawing his swords in a cross that, if it had connected, would have decapitated Tim. At the last second, the bo staff once again saves him when he manages to throw it up vertically and stop the scissor cut. Ra’s leans down, using his greater height and weight to nearly force Tim out of the ring.

“I admit,” the he continues,  _somehow_ barely breaking a sweat,” I was curious to see what you would do with access to  _nearly_  the entirety of the League’s databases. And you did  _not_ disappoint.”

Tim’s muscles strain with effort. The swords inch closer to his neck.

“I used that access to  _blow up most of the League’s bases_. And you’re telling me you did that  _on_   _purpose_?  _Knowing_  that I would turn it against you.” Tim can feel the blood simmering under his skin. He’d spent an entire year of his life working for the League to keep them from killing Tam. And if it was all for a pointless…

He’d only been able to pull one over on the League because Ra’s had  _underestimated_  him and he’d had to  _die_  to make it work. Tim’s pulse pounds in his ears as Ra’s continues to press, nearly forcing him to his knees.

That smile is  _vicious_. “Did you really think I would be so  _careless_  as to give you even a  _fraction_  of the access you received without good reason?”

Tim rolls out from under the pressure of Ra’s swords, barely returning to his feet in time to block the next swing.

Ra’s speaks with each volley, cutting with words as the bo staff keeps his swords from reaching Tim’s skin.

“The Council of Spiders was merely another threat; I have dealt with countless others of their caliber throughout history.”

The right scimitar comes slashing out at Tim’s torso in a swipe he barely manages to jump back from.

“And I have emerged victorious every time.”

The left sword rings against Tim’s bo in a high cut.

“They were better served as a means to an end: gauging how far you have come under the Detective’s tutelage, the  _potential_  of what you may become in the future.”

Another dual swing blocked by the staff.

“As for the bases, I admit I did not think you willing to take that degree of initiative.”

Tim's hands are starting to ache from the strength of the blows.

“To discover otherwise was a  _surprise_ ; a sensation with which I am less and less familiar as the centuries pass.”

A particularly vicious swing; Tim can hold off exactly  _no_ more of those and Ra's isn't even out of  _breath_. It's fucking unfair and - a dodged kick forces Tim back across the ring - he is  _completely_  out of his depth.

“Aside from your penchant for, shall we say,  _self-sacrifice_ , it was truly a magnificent display. Consider me  _intrigued_.”

Another three blows, another three almost-hits-

_Shit._  Shit, shit, shit, shit,  _not good_. 

Ra's just rains down attack after attack - 

Tim can barely keep blocking; he's getting slower. Losing ground - 

_None of this_ is fucking good.

His legs - 

He can't see Ra's.

Can't see anything but the fucking ceiling.

A moment of peace, but - 

He's wheezing, chest a mass of sharpened steel wool -  

_Move_ , the Batman in his brain yells.  _Get up, you're a Robin, not a turtle!_

\- reflexively rolling off his back, onto his side even though he's  _burning alive_.

Ra’s' legs come into view -

Tim pushes himself up as much as he can, arms and legs shaking with effort.

_You're too weak, you'll never make it_. 

No.

He focuses on the distant bo and the wall beyond. It's too far.

\- footsteps, coming closer - 

The looming shadow is  _nothing_. 

_This_  is nothing.

He does not whine, does not  _scream_  with the effort to lift his head. 

If he dies right here, right now? 

He dies defiant, to the end.

Ra's looks down, impassive.

Tim snarls. 

\- and he's  _falling_. A single push from Ra's and his muscles give way, forcing another gasp as he hits the floor.

His lungs are deadweight in his chest.

A boot is pressing down, like Ra's is going to break his sternum.

He can't  _breathe_  - 

It's  _exactly_  why Bruce drilled it into them to  _never fall on their backs_.

Tim doesn't think Bruce factored  _Ra's al Ghul_  into those drills with any serious intent, but the point still stands.

The pressure relents, but only a fraction. More holding him down than trying to inflict actual damage. Tim's lungs fight through the pain, working in time to suck in a desperate, reflexive breath. 

Sweet, cold air is the first thing he really  _feels_  past the panic, past the - 

The sword pressing against his cheek.

It isn't really a killing blow, but - 

It's instinctive to sneer, jerking away, and - 

The blade slips, just a hair. Breaks skin.

Tim draws still, seething. Hot blood  _seers_  his cooling skin.

“When one has lived as many centuries as I, the number of things which could be considered  _interesting_  diminishes significantly. Those few that still manage to hold my attention are too...  _rare_  to let disappear from the world without my say in their elimination.”

" _Fuck_." Tim forces another gasp of air. " _You_."

A wave of nausea hits him. 

Tim clenches his jaw against it, eyes fluttering shut. "And fuck your _fucking_ 'Intrigue'." When he opens them, a faint tinge of green  _lurks_  on the edges of his vision, waiting for Ra's to give that final push -

"Come now, Timothy." Ra's eyes still look completely fucking normal except, as he tuts - where Damian must get it from, a useless thought informs him - letting the sword bite that much deeper, a small flare of it flashes across his irises. "I'm sure you can use your precious air on something more productive. Breathing comes to mind." 

Tim stifles a wince against the sting, trying to ignore the trickle of blood oozing into his ear. The boot is just  _gone_ , and Tim inhales like a dying man as his chest gets its act together because Ra's being sarcastic means the threat alert's gone back down from red to yellow. Possibly green - though the shade is more Robin than Lazarus.

Ra’s pulls the sword back. He doesn’t break eye contact with Tim, even as he hands both of his blades to a servant who seems to just  _materialize_  next to him.

“When you managed to use the test in a manner it was not designed for – destroying most of the League’s infrastructure – believe me, I had every intention to kill you for it. But, watching you in those final moments in the Cradle, the realization struck me that I was  _fascinated._  That your actions in the last few days have proven you  _are_  one of those rare things, and allowing the potential you possess to be thrown away, to be  _wasted_ in a pointless martyrdom, would be unforgivable folly.”

Ra’s offers him a hand. Tim pushes himself to his feet without it, face coloring rapidly at  _that_  little speech. He would probably take offense at being called a  _thing_  if he weren’t too busy being  _massively creeped the fuck out right now._

How is it that he literally died but he  _still_  has to deal with this bullshit?

“We’ve talked about this, Ra’s. I’m not your heir – I will  _never_  be your heir. You didn’t have to bring me back just to hear that again because you already  _know_  my answer. It  _isn’t_  going to change. So I don’t understand  _why_  you did  _any_  of this, or why you can’t just  _accept_ …”

“I am not asking you to be.”

“…that. I…um. What?”

There’s a little error message blinking in the back of Tim’s brain, like he just tried to divide that answer by zero.

Ra’s takes his inarticulate response in stride and just keeps talking.

“Your resurrection is not contingent upon your cooperation, Timothy. It is not contingent upon anything.” Ra’s gestures for the servant to retrieve Tim’s bo staff – it had been knocked across the room when Tim fell. Somehow, the thought of his only available weapon being taken out of reach only barely permeates the ridiculousness of this conversation.

“All I ask is that you delay your inevitable escape long enough to recover sufficiently, and that you acknowledge the inherent benefit in… delivering you from the consequences of your plan.”

And that’s… uh. Tim doesn’t really know  _what_ he’s supposed to say to that.

Somewhere between throwing Tim in the Pit and now, Ra’s seems to have gone  _completely_  off script. Though it is absolutely possible that this is all part of his long-term revenge scheme, or he only brought Tim back because he’d felt cheated out of a good plan.

In fact, that’s probably  _exactly_ what this is, so it’d really be better for everyone involved if he cuts to the chase and ends this ridiculousness with a well placed –

“Fuck you, Ra’s. That’s bullshit and you know it.”

Tim does  _not_  wither under that glare. “You are nearly as bad as  _your_ _predecessor_ was when the Pit returned  _him_  to life. But not quite.” He holds his arms out for the servants who have  _definitely_  trained as ninjas at some point to drape the green cloak over his shoulders.

And he should really say something to that comment.

Exactly  _what_  he should say, he isn’t sure.

Not that he has the opportunity to -

“Walk with me.” Ra's says, abruptly, and strides out of the room in the direction he came. Not so much as a glance in Tim's direction to make sure he follows.

He thinks about what Pru said earlier; about Ra’s knowing more about the Pit’s effects than any other person alive. Certainly – if Pru’s account of other Lazarus survivors is accurate – more than any other person he’s likely to run into here.

After a moment of indecision, Tim sets off in a light jog to catch up with him.

The halls are wide enough that he can walk next to Ra’s – at a rational, if not entirely safe, distance of three feet – without running headfirst into the occasional passing servant.

“You are correct, once again, but only in part.” Ra’s continues once Tim has drawn even with his longer strides. “Your resurrection was not  _only_ meant to return a source of…  _entertainment_  to the world. It does, in fact, serve a dual purpose.”

He turns his head, glancing at Tim. “I have what those of more recent generations might call a  _job offer_  for you.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “The answer is still no, Ra’s. Also, never say that again.”

Ra’s tuts. It reminds him of Damian. “You would do well to  _listen_  before you speak, Timothy. It seems more and more that younger generations lose sight of things that were once considered  _decent conduct_.”

Tim almost groans – he’s heard  _that_  one before – but he keeps quiet so they can just get this over with already.

Ra’s, for once in his very long lifetime, gets straight to the point.

“As I am certain you are aware, Detective, my Expediter is dead. Leaving an… opening, of sorts, in the League. An opening for which your specific expertise  _eminently_  qualifies you.”

Tim blanches, nearly choking on air. “ _Why_  would I want to do that? No, actually, why would  _you_? I’ve helped the League before –  _under duress_  – and look where that got you. Test or not, most of your global infrastructure is  _gone_.”

They pass through a doorway, walking through a room filled with ninjas looking suspiciously busy and  _not at all_ like they’re eavesdropping. The next door leads to a sheltered, open-air bridge stretching from one section of the building to another.

Beneath them, the city sprawls out until the walls seem to brush against the distant mountains. It still doesn’t feel  _cold_  out here, even if it was a bit warmer inside.

Ra’s doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that, so Tim keeps talking.

“Though if you  _really_  want to go for round two against my _‘ _potential__ ’ by giving me access to your computers again, I’m assuming  _basic logic_  won’t persuade you to give me a choice in the matter.”

Ra’s halts in the middle of the bridge, stopping Tim in his tracks with sudden and intense eye contact.

“Oh, Timothy, you have  _every_  choice in the matter.”

What.

Ra’s continues, “Do you think I am incapable of learning from my past mistakes? I assure you, I would not have survived as long as I have were that the case.”

Ra’s walks to the side of the bridge, looking down upon his city.

“I concede that last time we joined forces, you were a… less than willing participant, though you  _have_  proven yourself a worthy adversary in the process.”

Is it still too late for Tim to jump off the bridge…?

“I have spent the time since your  _tragic_  decision at The Cradle to consider this – to imagine what we could accomplish were you to work  _with_  me,  _willingly_ , even for a short time.”

This is a conversation they have had before, even if it  _was_ about a different position.

“So that’s what  _you_ would get out of it, but you didn’t answer my question: Why the fuck would  _I_  want to have anything to do with you  _or_  the League.”

Tim joins him by the railing, begrudgingly.

_“ _Incentive__ , little viper.” Ra’s says with an inflection that does nothing to make Tim feel better about any of this, “As I understand it, you may have found proof that the Detective lives, yet you are still unable to procure a method of  _returning_ him to his proper temporal placement. What  _I_  am offering you is access to personnel and  _resources_ ; a clean slate, so to speak. This time, without any of the threats or conditions to which you reacted so poorly.”

Shit. Ra’s always knows to hit him where it hurts, and Bruce being missing – proving he’s right, that he’s still  _sane_ – is still a  _massive_  sore spot.

“All I ask in exchange is that you employ some of your considerable cognitive ability in…  _coordinating_  the League, for the duration of your search. Find him quickly, and you will have nothing to worry about. Take your time and… we will see how  _persuasive_  I can be.”

And that’s just a whole lot of  _nope_. Tim glares at Ra’s. 

He just smirks back, practically purring, “Besides, Detective, what are your other options? Running back to Gotham in disgrace with the blind hope they will take you back? Somehow, I find that unlikely, given Richard’s  _opinion_ of your mental state. I suppose you could always attempt operating on your own, but I wonder how far you would get without a network or the means to efficiently build one? Or would you simply give up and  _waste_  yourself on playing the harmless civilian? If any other paths present themselves, do tell; I would be  _fascinated_ to hear your contingencies for  _this_  situation, but seeing as they are so few–”

“The original plan was valid, Ra’s.  _You’re_  the one who insisted on bringing me back.” Tim interrupts.

Ra’s glare conveys intense feelings of  _shut up, I wasn’t done monologging._

Tim shrugs.

"Perhaps, Detective, you should have had such a contingency."

Tim... words cannot adequately describe how much he  _despises_ the fucking terrible excuse of a human being before him.

And Ra's has the gall to look fucking pleased about it. “As I was saying, Detective. None of these options will do; you were meant for greater things. Consider my offer: it would give you some measure of  _control_  over how the League rebuilds from your foray into…  _demolition_.”

He looks at Tim, cold and calculating.

“A global network at your fingertips. And, if you so choose, the means to stop disaster before it reaches your precious Gotham and everyone you love. I would give you the power to protect them in any way you deemed fit.”

Ra’s pauses, savoring the keystone of the argument that Tim knows is coming,

“Even if they don’t  _wish_  you close enough to help...”

_Damn him._ Of course Ra’s has to go there; no territory is sacred when it comes to his mind games. But the man is gearing up to speak again, and Tim has  _no_ idea  _what_  Ra’s would possibly think of to make that a more – at least in Ra’s perception of him – compelling argument.

“… or if there is a situation in which you cannot intercede without adequate warning. Imagine what you could have prevented, if my network had been there to inform you in time of the threat Kal-El’s alternate counterpart posed to Kon-El…”

“Stop talking.  _Right_   _now_.” Tim hisses between his teeth, staring out into the city with the tension that’s been boiling under his skin for far too long. His fists clench, and he’s  _this close_  to letting the Lazarus in his veins  _take the fuck over_.

“Say another word about him and I will push you off this  _goddamn_  bridge and find a way to dispose of your body where  _no one_ will  _ever_  find enough of you to bring back.”

He pauses for a moment, giving Tim a calculating look. He  _knows_ he’s giving too much away, but the feeling is still so raw; steel wool scraping his bones down to nothing.

Ra’s… actually doesn’t say anything.

The only sound is the distant city.

If Tim had been able to save Kon… if only. Things would be a lot different right now. He wouldn’t be  _here_ for one. Wouldn’t have been put in the Pit because he maybe, just maybe would have found another way out. Something he’d had little incentive to do at the time.

It wasn’t suicide, but it was… effective on more than one front.

A ninja servant approaches him, slowly. Offering a clean piece of gauze and an… antiseptic wipe? The man gestures to Tim’s cheek, and when he raises his hand to it, it comes away bloody.

Right. The sword.

He presses the gauze to the wound, uncaring of the sting.

It’s going to scar. He doesn’t miss the symbolism in Ra’s giving him the first one after the Lazarus Pit erased everything else.

The last two years (the last two  _days_ ) weigh heavy on his shoulders, dragging them downwards into a tired slump.

“Just. Where the fuck are we, Ra’s. And when can I leave?”

Ra's doesn't answer for first one, then two minutes. He spends them giving Tim an appraising stare that’s becoming far too familiar, far too quickly.

Eventually, he deigns to say, “I would prefer that you stay and recover. Clearly you are well enough to spar, but not well enough to truly control the aftereffects of using the Lazarus Pit – trust in the knowledge of one who knows from experience. Of course, if you wish to leave, you may attempt the journey any time you wish, though I doubt you will get very far on foot.”

A choice between staying here or dying in the snow, probably only to get thrown back in the Pit for his trouble.

“Answer the question, Ra’s” Tim looks around at the snow-covered mountains. They’re probably in the middle of nowhere, but he still has to _ask_ , “Where the fuck is this?”

“Detective,” Ra’s smiles a slow, knowing smirk, “You are in Nanda Parbat.”

Tim’s heard of it. He wishes he hadn’t.

Nanda Parbat. Bruce had mentioned it, once. Just an offhand allusion to it being the place that he’d trained. But with a name like _that_ and only one Rogue with consistent global dealings, Tim’s curiosity had been piqued.

And Bruce had never hidden his files half as well as he thought he did, but, perhaps anticipating that any and all Robins are intrinsically nosy sidekicks, he hadn’t included a location in said files either.

Perfect.

Ra’s gave him a goddamn name and there’s not much Tim can do with it. He knows it, too, with the way some sort of sick humor is shining behind his eyes.

So to show his displeasure with the situation, Tim decides to ignore Ra’s completely and avoid giving him the satisfaction of Tim’s reaction.

He doesn’t move from the bridge. He doesn’t engage either.

Instead, Tim stands – staring out at the city, seeing nothing but the memories in his head – for so long that the skulking ninja get bored and wander off. Until lashes of color begin to peek out from the distant mountaintops and the sun is nearly swallowed by the snow. Until Ra’s says… something and sweeps off, leaving Tim to his thoughts. His memories, really.

But his words linger. Like always.

‘If’: the introduction to a conditional clause or hypothetical situation. The way an outcome can be vastly altered by the slightest shift in decision, given the right circumstances.

Apparently he took  _something_  away from Bruce’s presentations on time travel and chaos theory.

It was during one of the Justice League’s symposia – the annual ‘how-not-to-massively-fuck-up’ series of lectures fueled by Batman’s paranoia and the truly staggering number of bizarre situations that always seem to find the League.

The Titans, as always, shuffled in together and commandeered a group of chairs with the solidarity of people who attended classes all week and were  _not_  interested in doing the same with their Saturday.

The grownups, on the other hand, passed on their mighty trove of experience with the zeal of people who loved a good monologue but could usually rein it in enough to avoid doing so in front of their enemies.

Which left sidekicks, part time heroes, and anyone without a  _stellar_  excuse being forced into the Watchtower’s largest open space and left to the JLA’s mercy.

Thirty five minutes into Batman’s presentation, the Titans were nearly vibrating out of their seats in impatience. Literally, in Bart’s case.

“Ugh, man. We get it already,” Conner groaned. “The Butterfly Effect is a joke right up until someone builds a fucking  _time_   _machine_  –”

Tim leaned over, elbow first.

Conner clutched his side, pouting and suddenly silent, but Batman didn’t glare their way.

Yet.

As if he wasn’t already laughing under his breath, Tim leaned in and whispered quietly, “You should pay attention. This is the sort of thing we need to know in case someone offers to fly around the world fast enough to reverse time.”

The surrounding audience broke into snickering, and on the other side of the room, Clark, always a victim of his own super hearing, rubbed his neck, shuffled a bit, and generally avoided eye contact.  _That_  shouting match between Superman and Batman had been _legendary_ , if not because the argument had lasted for the better part of  _three hours_ , then because everyone blamed the two of them for being forced to attend these lectures in the first place.

Tim smiles to himself; Bruce benched him for a week for that as punishment enough to keep Tim quiet in future meetings. But standing here right now? He would interrupt  _every_ lecture in a heartbeat to see Kon smile like that again.

Maybe if he  _had_  interrupted someone at some point during the next JLA-condoned punishment or just done something to shift even a single ‘if,’ it would have stopped this – any,  _all_  of this – from happening.

Chaos theory: a small change can snowball into vastly different outcomes.

What happens if you change something as large as the side you’re fighting for? 

The last time they'd had this conversation felt as if it had been an age ago, rather than a handful of days and weeks.

“Sides,” Ra’s scoffed through the communicator, halting Tim in his defense of … whatever he and Pru were bantering about, “are merely illusion.”

The interruption was as sudden as it was unwelcome.

Nine months into Tim’s ‘employment’ with the League, and Ra’s  _still_  hadn’t gotten bored of trying to goad him into debates – anything from the thin line between justice and vengeance to the limits of Ra’s’ bastardized consequentialism.

Pru looked over at Tim from where she was fighting with the tent, putting a finger her head and pulling the trigger. Her grin was annoyingly smug; Ra’s interruption had given her the last volley in their exchange.

Tim gave her his best, 'I'm not done with you,' squint and pointedly jabbed the mute button - no such luck. The thing just kept spewing out megalomaniacal lecture number eighty-three as he tried to focus on rehydrating their dinner with a voiceless, heavy sigh after a long day of tracking something endangered  _and_  the black market supplier who was after it. 

Pru sauntered back into view, gloating silently as she reveled the benefits of fully-functional mute control. Tim brought his decibel level just  _that_  much higher; she could tune out Ra's, but she couldn't turn off the side of the argument that's sitting in camp with her.

She only gave him an eye roll in response, but it was an eye roll of  _defeat_.

Though ... neither of them really came out on top of that one. Ra's philosophical fuckery had always been the erosion of sandstone in desert winds: inevitable, persistent, and  _entirely_  out of Tim's ability to control. 

It didn’t matter what the mission was; the voice in his ear was something of a constant those days. Ra’s low, corrupting purr narrowing the world down to just Tim and the poison whispered in his ear.

“There is no choice between right and wrong, no good, no evil. Only the fortitude to do what is necessary and the inability to act.”

Tim rolled his eyes.

Ra’s al Ghul’s driving mission is many things, but entirely ‘necessary’ has never been one of them. His was the calculus of survival; one man weighing the preservation of the planet against seven billion lives – and finding the latter wanting.

Something was certainly missing from  _that_  equation, though Tim suspected it had less to do with the supposed lack of humanity’s redeeming qualities and everything to do with the moral compass Ra’s misplaced sometime after his second century on Earth.

But … Tim knew himself well enough to admit that dealing with Ra’s would be a lot easier if the man’s goals weren’t, arguably, considered good causes in the hands of those who weren't homicidal extremists.

When he said as much, Ra’s turned it back at him: “Who are you to speak of moderation, Timothy? Most of what you know was taught to you by a man who dons the visage of a bat to harm and imprison criminals in a futile attempt to atone for his father’s failure to act.”

“Gotham’s police can’t handle the more dangerous ones.” Tim answered, rote. “We’re saving lives.”

He remembers Ra’s laughter, how he’d winced at the loud and grainy outburst through the earpiece.

“Are you, truly? Do you  _save_  lives when you lock murderers like the Joker away in Arkham or Blackgate, only for them to escape the next week and kill again? It is foolish, Timothy, and shortsighted to allow such criminals to thrive on the indulgence of society’s understanding –”

Tim – distracted by a certain egomaniac in love with the sound of his own voice – cut off Ra’s tirade with the  _clang_ of his foot, nearly taking out their portable stove.

“Jesus, bird brain!” A hand landed on his shoulder – Pru’s – as she yanked him back.

“What?” Tim jumped. “Sorry!”

“Give me that –” She reached up to snatch away his communicator, unmuting hers to say, singsong, “I’m sorry, Timmy’s lost his phone privileges for the evening. Please call again tomorrow” before stuffing it in her pocket. It was a miracle, really, that she hadn't been killed for insubordination yet.

‘Thank you,’ he mouthed.

“I swear to fucking god, Birdy, if you screw up dinner, I’m eating your power bars.”

She wasn’t kidding. Tim refocused the remnants of his energy on turning their rations into something nearly edible before collapsing into a boneless heap in their shared tent. Sleep didn’t come easily,  _or_  quickly, for that matter.

Cut off as Tim had been, Ra’s question hung in the air – bleeding like dark ink into the tissue paper gaps between Tim’s synapses – unanswered.

He hadn’t had a rebuttal at the time; at least not one that Ra’s would be satisfied with. He isn’t even sure he has one  _now_. Only the knowledge that without Bruce’s rules, without  _limits_ , all of them could become the very thing they fight.

Tim almost saw it in Batman, after Jason’s death, and became Robin to prevent a good man from crossing the stark line between good and bad; to his thirteen-year-old mind, the distinction was as clear as the break between soft green and sharp red on the Robin suit.

But Tim hasn’t worn that shade of green in years.

His chest clenches – a sharp pang that’s become far too common in the last year he’s spent drowning in shades of gray he hadn’t known the line even  _had_  until he walked straight to its gradiated edge.

Tim looks up, trying to surface from the riptide of his thoughts. Mostly failing.

The light has nearly faded from the sky, submerging the mountains in darkness. Above him, the night washes a deeper and darker blue across the sky, chipping away at the sunset until the only brightness left is the cold light of distant stars.

His eye travels along them, catching on their patterns.

Something loosens around his lungs.

Their  _familiar_  patterns.

Tim exhales.

Above him, the gentle slope of the Big Dipper is steady and sure: seven tiny stars that stuck with him all the way from home.

Northern hemisphere, then.

He isn’t sure where he expected to be four years after the first time he went stargazing, but he suspects that staring up at the same stars – here, in Nanda Parbat of all places – wouldn’t have crossed his radar.

To be fair, he would have never expected to be stargazing in the first place.

Tim hadn't done it as a young child.

Though he learned that curfews were merely guidelines to those clever and sneaky enough, Gotham’s smog has always been too thick for stars. Besides, why would he care to look up when the more interesting sight was always only a camera lens and a few rooftops away?

No trips to see them, either. His parents had always left for their trips without him, so the first time he really left the city was when he boarded that train to Blüdhaven, heart pounding at the newness of it all, intent on convincing his childhood hero to just  _come_   _back_ , Bruce needs you.  _Batman needs a Robin_.

He stared straight ahead, spine stiff and steely eyes hiding so much internal terror at the icy look on Richard Grayson’s face and the way time stood still – at absolute zero – when the man growled out, “Who are you and where did you learn those names.”

He’d never expected to see that scowl melt into something warm, almost glowing in the years he trained, fought to wear that R. As he kept Batman from the edge.

Tim traces the constellations from memory, finds the unmoving eye of Sirius, the arch of the Little Dipper. He feels the ghost of arms around him, hands guiding the frame of his fingers until each individual cluster rests between them.

“That one’s Cassiopeia, little brother.” Dick said, two years into the job, dragging him out of Gotham, away from the city lights and off the road in the middle of New Jersey’s nowhere. Staring up at a sky clear of Gotham’s light pollution – held against the strong, safe warmth of a person he trusted implicitly – he’d felt like he could see the entire universe. A shift of the hands bracketing his own, the deep baritone of Dick whispering conspiratorially in his ear, “Follow it down –”

Beneath Cassiopeia, the constellation Perseus still hangs heavy in the sky. Within it, the star Algol. Derived from the original Arabic,  _al ġūl_. An ill omen; the ghoul star.

Yet they call him ‘The Demon’s head.’

Tim wonders when the mistranslation happened; where exactly in five hundred years and the globalization of a criminal empire was the name warped from its original intent? Does Ra’s even –

His scowl deepens, any fondness from the memory fleeing his chest. Can he keep  _anything_  to himself? Does  _everything_  lead back to Ra’s? Even –  _especially_ – here, Tim cannot escape him.

Pinpricks of pain make themselves known in Tim’s hands. It isn’t splinters; the wood is too polished for that. He looks down, at his hands and their white-knuckled death grip on the railing.

Tim isn’t good with being cornered.

He pushes off from the side of the bridge, stumbling back a step as his legs tremble and unlock. Too much tension, too many thoughts.

Despite being clearly warmer in here than past the walls, the temperature isn’t constant. With the onset of darkness, the temperature has dropped, and he’s still warm enough to keep from shivering, but he really could use some sleeves.

No one seems to be around, either.

Well, shit.

He remembers the way back to the room he started in, but the rebellious flame in his chest tells him that would be giving in too easily, too soon. Ra’s doesn’t respect people who aren’t challenging.

Not that he  _wants_  Ra’s’ respect, but the people who don’t earn it have a tendency to wind up  _permanently_  dead.

It helps that he won’t find his way out of here if he just goes to bed like a good little vigilante. The temperatures past the walls and – probably – environmental control field would be problematic, but there has to be  _something_  around here he can use….

Tim makes for the opposite building instead, heading for the door Ra’s left through. He pushes against the heavy, dark wood, and the door flies open with a touch and  _rings_ out against the doorstop. He suppresses a flinch but carefully closes the door anyway, and resists the urge to slink like an intruder along the corridor beyond.

They already know he’s here.

The soft glow of electric lighting casts faint shadows as he walks, footsteps echoing uncomfortably in the emptiness. Rooms line either side of the hall, but after the first few – a sparsely furnished sitting room, a library he notes the location of on his mental map, an  _overly_  furnished sitting room – he doesn’t bother to check.

Like the doors, the crossways of the hallways lack signage, so Tim picks one at random and continues onwards. It’s a little aimless, if he’s honest, but pouring his nervous energy into physical movement was something Dick taught him when he was Robin. You know, before he declared them ‘equals’ and mentioned that Tim might be better off in a mental facility in nearly the same breath. Whatever sort of sense  _that_  made.

If Tim takes the next turn a little sharply, no one is there to notice. Yet.

Four turns, an overabundance of gold filigree, and a distressingly small number of windows pass before he sees the first ninja. Or rather, before they  _let_  him see them. 

For now, they’re just flashes in his periphery when he crosses intersections or passes through courtyards; living shadows haunting his path through the citadel. When he looks back, he sees only empty corridors.

Likewise, through the rare windows, he looks for patterns in the lights of Nanda Parbat, some green 'X' or red circle or  _something_  indicative of a landing pad.

No such luck.

Tim will only see what Ra's lets him see; an unfortunate trend he never really liked in the last year and certainly doesn't appreciate now.

Though, when he thinks about it, he isn't sure he  _wants_  to know some of the grittier details of the city - like how many ninjas are actually lurking around here.

Lack of visibility aside, they’re pretty high up, and they had to transport him here  _somehow_. Ra’s doesn’t really seem like the ‘trek through glaciers and thin mountain passes  _on foot_ , hoping you reach Nanda Parbat before you freeze to death’ type.

It had to be a plane of some sort, and even if none of the aircraft are visible  _now_ , the city is definitely big enough to hide an impressive selection of aircraft beneath it.

So he takes the first staircase he sees, descending with his invisible entourage into the bowels of the place.

There are an irritating number of levels. Every so often his current set of stairs ends, and he has to find another. His balcony had been pretty high above the city, but  _this_ seems excessive.

With depth, the quality of the furnishings decreases –  from pieces that wouldn’t look out of place in any number of palaces to stuff he’s pretty sure Ra’s would shudder at the thought of owning. As the rooms start to look used – more personal, like people actually  _live_  here – the ninja train swells to numbers insufficiently hidden by the hallways shadows.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Tim sees a couple of them jostle for a spot where he can’t see them, notice they’re being watched, and give up the pretense of stealth. If there is a ninja equivalent of a shrug, it’s what they’re doing.

Tim walks until he can’t find a way down that isn’t locked. As the opulence decreases to Ra's-wouldn't-be-caught-dead-here levels, more of the shadows resolve themselves into visible ninja, to the point where if he wanted to backtrack, he’d have to force his way through a hallway clogged by dark League uniforms if he wanted to get anywhere.

They don’t seem inclined to move; he can only go forward – wherever  _that_  leads him. The ninja don’t offer directions or any sort of assistance, but he wouldn’t expect them to.

Although they certainly they don’t need  _this_  many to make sure he doesn’t cause trouble. But … if they knew the ninja he knocked out by the Lazarus Pit, he can understand the impulse to be wary.

The hallway before him stretches out for about fifty feet before disappearing in a blind corner. Halfway down, a door is slightly ajar, bright light pouring out into the night-muted colors of the hall. A few of the ninja break off and go on ahead of him, pushing the door open silently and slipping inside.

For lack of better inspiration, Tim follows.

The inside is  _packed_ with ninja in varying states of battle ready, with most of them trending toward the ‘not even remotely’ end of the scale. None of the ninja seem to be wearing armor, and some of them are stumbling around as if intoxicated. One is passed out on hanging lighting fixture, one arm dangling off haphazardly.

It’s… a little bizarre, to be honest.

He walks a few steps further in, and the buzz of the crowd’s noise covers him like a blanket. A few of them are very  _loud_  considering their profession.

As he ducks and weaves around the bodies, some of them give him weird looks. But no one halts his progress, even as the throng of ninja grows denser toward the center of the room. He’ll count that as a win, curious and getting closer to whatever has all of them so enraptured. Tim squeezes his way through the ninja at the front of the crowd and –

_This_  is familiar.

The crowd forms a circle around a rectangular, wooden table, giving its occupants a wide birth. At the center, a ninja is hovering above a shot glass with a thousand-yard stare. One hand inches towards it, grasping desperately as the ninja lifts it inch by shaky inch, amber liquid sloshing inside.

Almost makes it, too.

Only a hairsbreadth from downing the contents, the hand holding the shot gives way, releasing both the glass and its contents. Lightning fast, a spectator breaks formation to catch it, even before the first ninja hits the ground. Two more step forward to drag their newly unconscious coworker away from the table, moving the limp body to where – Tim can just barely make out through the crowd – a small pile of ninja are either out cold or holding their heads, moaning in pain.

The crowd’s decibel level increases with their enthusiasm, cheering on the reigning champion in all her bald, inebriated glory.

“Birdy!” Pru looks to face Tim in a turn so sharp it could have induced whiplash. Her grin is wide and unreserved. “Fuckin’  _finally_. Was starting to think I’d have to drag your gorgeous arse off that bridge myself.” A few of the ninja nod in agreement. She throws her head back in loud, raucous laughter and refills her shot glass. Gestures to the spot on the bench next to her.

“Com’ere and watch me drink another’a these chavs under the table.” Tim rolls his eyes, but sinks down next to her. From experience, he knows she’s at the point where a few more rounds won’t put her under, but going past that would be a bad idea.

The kind of bad idea that would lead to Tim holding her hair back while she throws up on the nearest surface – if she had anything resembling hair or the desire to show the kind of weakness inherent in letting someone  _help_ her with anything short of revenge murder.

He’s under no illusion that tonight isn’t going to end with him watching her puke her guts up. “Do I even want to know why…?” Tim ventures, hesitant.

“Bored.” Is the short, and apparently only, response she gives him.

Pru offers him a glass, but he declines.  _Someone_  is going to have to make sure she doesn’t just drink until she passes out on the table, and, as usual, that someone is going to be Tim. It helps that he’s ninety nine point three percent certain getting drunk within a hundred miles of Ra’s is a really bad idea; he doesn’t want to test those odds.

“Suit yourself,” she says, pointing to another ninja in the circle. They step forward, only a little hesitant even though they  _have got_ to know how this is going to end.

Maybe they’re new.

In the past year, Tim’s seen her pull this stunt a few times in the Cradle, and more than a few times in bars across Europe. She’s gone toe to toe with people who have three times her muscle mass and come out standing, pressing her heel to the halves of their faces that aren’t making friends with the floor.

Part of him wants to test her for meta genes, because there’s no way that her tolerance is any kind of normal (or, you know,  _healthy_ ).

Tim’s expression passes silent judgment on the new challenger sliding onto the bench across from them. The ninja doesn’t stand a chance.

While she’s busy calling for another bottle – ninja scrambling to do the bidding of the woman who is, technically and inexplicably, their ranking officer – Tim grabs the empty shot glass and sniffs it.

Whisky, strong. Not the cheap stuff either, so this probably isn’t on Pru’s budget.

Ra’s can afford it.

She turns back, slamming the new bottle on the table with a confrontational  _thud_. Her grin is savage. Almost imperceptibly, the ninja leans back.

“Here’s how it’s gonna work, love. Two shots per round; I drink the first, you drink the second. We go till we can’t – ‘an by that, I mean until  _you_ can’t.”

The ninja swallows but nods.

“Good.” Pru gives the borrowed glass in Tim’s hand a  _look_ , but just grabs a new one from the opposite side of the table. She fills it, knocking it back in record time, leaving the ninja a little dazed. “Now, you.”

The ninja follows orders.

It lasts about two more shots each – spaced between a few tense ninja-assassin stare downs – before Pru’s latest victim is on the floor, being dragged off by the other ninja.

Huh.

“I’ve seen you out-drink Ra’s actual  _assassins_ , so why are you competing with these guys?” Tim asks, turning to where Pru is resting her head on one arm, eyes a little dazed.

She gives him a sharp look. “Not really a  _competition_ , is it?”

Tim glances at the semi-comatose ninja pile. “No, I suppose not.”

“ – ‘sides, you see any  _other_  assassins ‘round here, handsome? Ain’t a thing – ‘s why I gotta resort ta’ drinking with these fucks who ain’t even done this ‘afore.”

Tim raises an eyebrow. “I thought we were in a League of  _Assassins_  stronghold? Isn’t ‘assassins’ the key word? And the ninja don’t drink…?”

Pru tries to smack the back of his head, but she ends up rubbing his hair into a bird’s nest more than anything.

Clearly, she keys into the most important of Tim’s questions when she says, “Nah, nothing worth drinking up in the mountains – ‘an I was  _really_  hoping this place had some sorta secret, super alcohol to tide me over till the Demon finishes doin’ whatever he’s plannin’ with  _your_ pretty ass.”

At that, Tim’s stomach falls out. Possibly into the hole left by his spleen. Pru is  _known_  for saying shit like that, but if she isn’t joking…

“Ha! Your fucking  _face_ , Birdy.” She’s joking. It’s at Tim’s expense, but can’t even care when it’s  _leagues_  better than the alternative.

Pru keeps talking like she didn’t just insinuate Tim is about to get bad touched in his near future. “But  _nope_. Best they got here is normal fuckin’ whisky –  _good_ whisky, mind you, god knows where they even get it in the middle of  _nowhere_ , but this shit ain’t absinthe.”

Tim really, really hopes she doesn’t have regular access to something as strong as that. The world wouldn’t survive.

“Anyway, Assassins ‘cept the Demon hi’sself can’t get into Nanda Parbat w’thout ‘ _special dispensat’n_ ,’ an–” She punctuates pretty much every word with air quotes as if Tim can’t hear them  _loud_ and  _clear_. “  _–‘an_  the ninja can’t get out. Makes ‘em good fighters – only the best for Ra’s  _real_  base ‘a operations – but ‘t also  _isolates_  ‘em from the joys of the world. Like lettin’ themselves get into drinking contests with anythin’ stronger than  _a piss poor excuse for wine_.” She directs that last bit to the room at large, drawing several more onlookers.

Another ninja sits.

Pru pours two more shots.

Tim is concerned.

“What’s your ‘dispensation’ then?”

Pru screws her face into a faux-stern expression, saying, “A ‘special assignment' of the utmost importance. Do not fail me.’

Her Ra’s impression is actually pretty decent.

“Or some shite. Fuck if I know.”

“And that assignment would be…?”

She finishes the next shot, turns to glare at Tim.

The ninja seems … nervous?

“I’m not  _that_ drunk, arsehole.”

The concerning assortment of empty bottles and glasses at the end of the table would beg to differ. Not all of them are hard liquor, thankfully. And she  _has_  been here just as long as Tim, so it wouldn't be impossible that she's had a while to finish them off. But - 

“How much have you had?” Tim asks, tentatively.

“Eh….” Pru makes a vague gesture to a section of the carnage. “Wasn’t  _all_ me.”

Tim nods slowly. “Ok. A better question might be, ‘how do you still have a liver?’”

Pru grins, rakish in an uncomfortably familiar way when she drawls out, “League secret, Birdy.”

Tim suspects that if she ever met Jason, they’d either take over the world together or destroy everything in a hundred mile radius.

Not that he’d necessarily object, considering where he is and  _why_.

He looks around. There are fewer ninjas in here than when he entered. A glance at the doorway confirms that they’re slowly drifting out, occasionally bringing some of their fallen comrades with them to sleep it off.

The ninja on the other side of the table sways dangerously –

Tim stands, reaching out.

– and they topple to the floor.

Even if they  _are_ all apparently lightweights, that seems as good a sign as any.

“Would you look at that,” Tim says, slinging an arm around Pru’s shoulders, “You scared them all off.”  He subtly grabs the mostly-full bottle of bad ideas before Pru can drink herself into a coma.

She scoffs but she’s also  _so_  smug. “Who d’you think I am, Birdy?”

Tim maneuvers the bottle behind her back. “Better than me at drinking!” He says, laughing, as he deftly avoids a sluggish, outstretched hand to move the bottle to his side of the table and into a surprisingly deep pocket against his calf. “Hey, Pru?”

She looks back to him, reaction time only fractionally slower than her usual.

“Remember Copenhagen?”

“A’course.” The sound she makes is probably supposed to be a laugh. “Hard ta’ forget the way that blonde in the pretty little number was tryin’ ta rub her tits all over ya –”

“Not that time,” Tim stammers, a little to quickly, entire body suddenly burning with embarrassment.

Pru gives him a look that says  _yeah, sure_.

Tim huffs. “Besides, if I remember correctly,  _you_ were the one who decided to take her back to the hotel.”

“ _Yeah_ , I was.” She chuckles. “Wasn’t bad either, ‘specially when she–”

“Nope!” Tim really, really doesn’t think it’s an abuse of his training to slam his hand over her mouth. “We are  _not_  going there. I heard enough of it through the wall and I do  _not_ need the visual to back that up.” He yanks his hand away when Pru tries to lick it.

Real mature.

“I  _meant_ , the second night. The one where you drank enough that I had to drag you back to the hotel room because you were  _too fucking out of it to walk?_ ”

“You ‘bout to say you took me ta’ bed when I was too pissed ta  _remember_ it? ‘Ats  _cold_ , handsome.”

“Well, when you put it like that, I’m about to say you can knock it off or get back to your room – wherever the fuck Ra’s has you sleeping – by yourself. And I  _really_ don’t think you can walk right now.”

“Offerin’ me a  _ride_ , Birdy?” Her eyebrows waggle suggestively, leaving absolutely nothing to implication.

Tim pushes the back of her head until she’s staring up at him from the table. “You’re impossible.”

She squints, flashing him an uncoordinated grin. “You still like me.”

“God knows why.”

Tim is content to just leave her there for the moment. Getting her up without help would be more hassle than it’s worth.

He shifts the used glasses away from her general vicinity, just in case she flails more than he’s expecting.

“Guess you gotta point, though.” She says when she’s had enough of watching him organize things out of boredom and the vague desire not to be hit by flying glassware.

Pru sits up, tries to stand.

Tim watches, slightly amused, as she gets about an inch or two off the bench before collapsing back down.

He doesn’t laugh, but it’s a close thing.

“Come on,” Tim prompts, snaking an arm beneath Pru’s and across her back. “Lift.”

She does, stumbling against him a little as they work together to tug her legs free of the bench.

The ninjas stand by, watching. Maybe it’s just Tim’s impression, but they look a little too afraid to offer helping. How many nights has she been down here doing this?

(How long did Ra’s have his body before he threw it in the Pit?)

“You.” He gestures to a cluster of waiting ninja. In true comedic style, most of them shift out of the way until he’s left with an outstretched hand reaching toward the one who wasn’t fast enough. “Yes, you. Come here.”

Apparently ninja will only avoid one of Ra’s assassins (or maybe just  _this_  assassin) when they aren’t called out on it, because the ninja only raises an eyebrow as she makes her way to where Tim is propping Pru up.

“Well?” He asks, giving the ninja a meaningful look before glancing in Pru’s direction. The ninja doesn’t need to be told twice.

And, really, Pru isn’t all that heavy, but it is a  _lot_ easier to carry her deadweight when it’s more than just Tim doing the carrying. The ninja is about as big as Tim is; toned muscles shift beneath the dark, tawny skin of uncovered arms, lifting Pru’s other shoulder and helping him drag her out of the room.

With incentive like their friend being roped into helping Ra’s ‘guest,’ more of the ninja fall in to help in the effort. He hopes at least  _one_ of them knows where Pru is sleeping, because the ninja in front is leading them somewhere and, at some point during the night, Tim lost track of exactly where he was headed.

Other than down, of course. That hangar bay is still out there and he  _will_ find it.

The trip is long, but with the ninja helping him tackle staircases, it isn’t nearly as grueling as it could be. The ninja themselves aren’t half bad either.

Thanks to Bruce’s training, Tim is fluent enough in Arabic to have a decent – if slightly more condescending than usual – back and forth with Ra’s or to know when Damian is insulting him in the language.

That said, he catches the gist of the ninja’s conversation, if not the nuance, because it isn’t  _entirely_ Arabic. To his ear, it sounds like a pidgin between the League’s favored Arabic and either Tibetan or Burmese.

Between that and the architecture, the discovery narrows things down enough for Tim to more conclusively guess Ra’s base is somewhere in Central Southern Asia. Not that it’ll help him if he can’t find a ride out of here.

Tim grits his teeth, refocusing on dragging Pru across the bridge leading into the first part of the fortress. The ninja keep talking. They seem to be having a decent time, too, going by the one that nearly pitches over the side of the building from laughter. The joke was either made at Tim’s expense or mildly insulting to their ‘Master.’ Maybe both.

Who knew Ra’s footsoldiers had a sense of humor?

Apparently not Tim. He doesn’t quite realize where they’re going until they’ve reached the hall outside the room he started in.

“<Was this on purpose?>” He asks them – trying in Arabic first – standing outside the door as two of them push it open.

The ninja who helped him carry Pru gives him a look like this is one of the funniest things to happen all year.

“Your Arabic is worse than hers.” She says, in accented English, tilting her head towards where Pru is out cold between them. The ninja only smiles wider at his raised eyebrow. “And she is  _awful_  at it.”

That’s… probably fair. Even if all League documents  _are_  written in Arabic, it sometimes took Tim and Pru’s combined efforts to decipher their marching orders.

Still – Tim is frustrated, nearly dead on his feet, and  _a prisoner_ in all but name; his first instinct is to snap at the ninja for purposely missing the point, but he reins it in. The ninja  _did_ help him drag Pru here, even if it isn’t where he meant to end up.

“Thank you. Um, for the help.” It’s probably better to be polite to the people who know where he sleeps, even if he might have to beat any of them up in an escape attempt.

The assorted ninja help him maneuver Pru onto the bed, leveraging her weight so she ends up in a relatively straight position. Tim adjusts her limbs so she won’t try to drown on her own vomit if the whisky disagrees with her in the middle of the night.

She’s the only person in Nanda Parbat who he can  _maybe_  count as an ally, and he would miss her particular brand of snark, even if it  _is_  aimed at him more often than Tim would like.

He stands, moving away from the bed. Most of the ninja seem to dissipate into the dark hall until he’s left standing alone with the one who helped him carry Pru.

Tim sits on the couch.

The single ninja isn’t leaving.

“…Hi?” He says. It might be a question.

“Hello.” The ninja doesn’t move to join him, or go for the door. She’s just… staring.

It’s a bit weird.

And then it’s completely terrifying.

Between one blink and the next, the ninja is right in front of him, pinning his shoulders to the back of the couch with one arm and an unexpectedly sharp elbow.

She leans in. Tim holds his ground.

For a second, he legitimately thinks she’s going to kill him.

Then she smiles, wide mouth splitting over teeth whiter than teeth have a right to be. It isn’t friendly. “Your reaction time is lacking as well.  _American_.” She says the last bit like an insult. Tim supposes that in a good percentage of the world, it probably is.

He isn’t really sure what to say to that, though.

She doesn’t seem to care.

“But … you did not flinch.” He thinks that’s a compliment? It would probably be supremely unhelpful to mention that a man dressed like a bat trained that out of him years ago.

She laughs at his discomfort, a full body affair that shakes her hard enough that a few strands of wavy, dark brown hair shake free of their tie.

He resists the urge to sneeze when they tickle his nose.

“Maybe He is right about you. Perhaps you will become something of worth yet.” Tim can  _hear_  that capital. She says it like she’s talking about a god.

In her mind, maybe she is.

She backs off, and Tim feels like he can breathe again. She can’t be taller than five foot six, but she seems to tower over him in the dark of the room.

“The Master has ordered me to be your – what is the word you use? –  _tourguide_  in the morning. Try to get some sleep so you can keep up tomorrow.”

He looks at her skeptically.

“I value my time. If you do not sleep, I will simply throw you off the balcony now and be done with it.”

There is something particularly...  _green_  about the way the words sound, the edges of his vision blur a little and...

Tim stands, drawing eye level with her. His smile feels lopsided and alien on his face “Try it. It'll be the last thing you ever do.”

Faster than he can think about what he just said, her boot aimed at his chest. Lightning fast, his arms snap out. She’d probably meant to kick him down onto the couch, but he was ready for her this time.

Tim hasn’t spent many standoffs holding someone’s  _foot_  before, so it’s a unique experience all around.

“He only said we could not  _kill_  you.” She laughs, seeming unbothered for all that she's staring intently at his eyes. “But… perhaps accomplishing that feat would be more difficult than has been rumored?”

The ninja’s head tilts like a particularly psychotic bird’s. The smile is back, wider this time. Tim swears that isn’t normal.

She looks down at where he’s caught her foot mid-kick. Makes a thoughtful noise before granting, “That was not  _bad_ , American.”

The ninja leaves her boot between his hands like that’s completely normal. Her look is considering for the three point four seconds before she pulls her leg – and Tim – closer, jerking him forward. She catches him before he can face plant straight into her chest, like vices gripping his shoulders. He tries to twist out, but she holds tight, leaning in close enough that he can feel her breath against his face.

“But you have much to learn before you are  _worthy_  of the Master.” Her mouth curls at the edges

Tim takes  _offense_ at that. The  _thing_  beneath his skin bubbles up, “I don’t  _need_  to be –”

“I am Noor.” The woman – Noor, apparently – cuts him off, silencing any complaint. Tim quirks an eyebrow at the change in topic, letting out a small sigh as the suddenness shifts the green tinge of his vision back to a normal range. She pushes him back towards the couch, though he doesn’t let the strength behind her shove force him to sit back down.

The last topic of conversation died a graceless death with Noor’s quick dismissal – he suspects it would be more trouble than it’s worth to bring it back up. Without a better option, and because he has basically given up on secrecy when dealing with the League, he waits a long moment before responding with, “My name is Tim.”

Noor looks at him like he just told her the value of pi is exactly three.

“Is it?” She asks.

It’s probably meant to be rhetorical, since the next second she’s walking out the door and pulling it shut behind her.

Why does everyone who works for Ra’s have to be so fucking weird?

Tim … probably can’t even complain about that.

Tim collapses back into the couch. His muscles feel like he just went three rounds with Killer Croc. It can't be the confrontation with Noor - he's faced down bigger  _and_  badder and come out of it no worse for wear. That  _green_ though... Tim thinks about the broken mirror in his room, the sparing match with Ra's, the bridge, the - albeit deathless - carnage from the Pit.

If two times is coincidence, five is...

_Fuck._

There is an entire ocean between suspecting Pit-madness and  _knowing_. He isn't even supposed to be  _alive_  right now, but to bring him back like  _this_...

If Bruce were here, he would keep someone controlled by the green as far away from Gotham as possible. If Bruce were here, he would try to hold one of his former Robins back from the edge, would try to  _help_  Tim...

Would die, leaving Tim to his exile.

Even if he finds the hangar bay, can he even fly with the Pit riding him...?

Tim glances over at where Pru is quietly snoring herself into oblivion. He wonders if the sounds she makes in her sleep change every time her nose gets broken.

Tim makes a mental note to check, the next time it inevitably happens.

But it probably won’t be tonight, he thinks, lying back on the overstuffed cushions. There are a few throw pillows that he can make do with, and he’s really too tired to walk all the way to the bed and steal one the ones scattered around Pru.

Speaking of… he stashes his appropriated whisky bottle between the couch cushions, hoping that by the morning Pru won’t remember he took it. Tim  _really_  doesn’t need to wake up to a hung-over assassin trying to shake him down for alcohol.

At the far side of the room, the now-untied curtains flap irregularly against the walls, filling the air with the soft slide of cloth on stone. It isn’t batwings, but the sound is similar.

In a matter of minutes Tim finds himself drifting off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for referenced past character death and probably PTSD. Also for alcohol and the consumption of inadvisable amounts of it. Pru is probably an alcoholic, kids. That's not healthy.
> 
> This chapter... spiraled out of control. But, hey, 30k benchmark?
> 
> A huge thank you to everyone who's stuck with this so far - I really appreciate all the great feedback :)
> 
> Things are about to get rough (er?) for our boys from here on out - so get ready for Tim's continuing circumstantial captivity and some ninja hunting. Interspersed, of course, with incredible amounts of angst.
> 
> Also: Some notes on Ra's and which elements of his character I'm running with, for anyone who's wondering: 
> 
> Though DC seems to have dropped some of his environmental philosophy in recent years, this Ra’s al Ghul’s goals are based off his original conceptualization as an environmental preservation-oriented villain. With all the mass murder, meritocracy, and social Darwinism involved in being a semi-lawful evil environmentalist. 
> 
> Here, he's more of a well-intentioned extremist than a straight villain because, unlike Batman rogues such as the Joker, he’s doing what he feels is necessary to create a better world. Emphasis on the extremist part of that though. For obvious reasons, Ra’s’ definition of _better _is completely terrifying.__
> 
> His philosophy on crime is borrowed from the Nolanverse!Ra’s – with some of his lines from Batman Begins adapted into Deadfall.
> 
> Edit: in case anyone has re-read this and noticed some changes, the fantastic  artificiallifecreator  has been doing some lovely beta-ing! An equally huge thank you for that ongoing awesomeness :D


	5. Infiltration

 Jason almost spits out his beer.

“Why the fuck do you wanna go  _there_?”

Dick should have waited until Jason  _wasn’t_  drinking to ask, but hindsight is twenty-twenty and at least he doesn’t have whatever microbrew the other vigilante brought with him all over his face.

Jason coughs a little, looking incredulous as he gestures to Dick with his beer bottle.

“I mean, I’m  _all for_  fucking with Ra’s shit – a few exploding bases would do the prick some  _good_ , ya know? But  _that_? That’s a death wish.”

He shifts forward from his side of the couch, putting an arm in the no man’s land between them and using the leverage to shift forward into Dick’s space. His eyes draw level with Dick’s, and maybe it’s the alcohol, but he can’t read that expression.

“An’ I got that outta my system a looong time ago.”

Dick shoves at him, using the motion to hide the hurt he’s sure is clear in his eyes, but smiling at the Gotham accent that surfaces whenever Jason drinks. At least this time it isn’t because he’s angry.

“You’re the worst.” He says, lacking any venom.

Jason backs off, laughing in the way Dick has come to associate with the incorrigible asshole that is his brother finding amusement in other people’s pain.

“That how you’re plannin’ ta convince me that bein’ your tour guide for this little suicide mission’s a good idea? Cuz I can tell ya now – not the right approach.”

Dick laughs, rolls his eyes.

It isn’t like it’d be a hard sell anyway; Jason would probably help him infiltrate  _anything_ if it gave him sufficient opportunity to use the rocket launcher.

Bruce may be gone, but the ‘not in Gotham’ rule still stands.

To be honest, Dick isn’t sure why Jason even bothers following it, given his feelings about Bruce and his edicts.

“Who says I want you as a tour guide?” Dick asks, more to just say  _something_ to that than as any sort of challenge.

Jason narrows his eyes. “Because you’re not as much ‘a an idiot as ya look, Goldie.”

Dick kicks at him, foot finding Jason’s thigh and shoving like he means to push him off the couch. Jason braces himself, a single eyebrow rising at the attempt. Seeing that it isn’t going to be anything other than a stalemate, Dick pulls back, taking swig from his own bottle as a consolation prize.

Jason, possibly counting it as a win, drains his, and walks to the kitchen to get another.

Neither of them speaks.

Dick watches the other vigilante’s path, thinks about how  _much_ it took for them to even get to this point.

It isn’t like they were close when Jason was Robin, and Dick still feels he’s owed the blame for that. Mad at Bruce and high on his own freedom, he’d had nothing but the briefest acknowledgement and slight derision for the new Robin. The new kid wearing  _his_  costume and using  _his_  nickname; the last thing he really had from his parents.

Now, he likes to think he would have made more of an effort if he knew what was going to happen.

Nothing really improved until Jason stopped trying to kill all of them, and even then, there were rough patches. Bruce’s death, for one.

Sometimes, but usually only after he’s at  _least_ five beers in, he thinks Jason might be a lesson in hindsight. Don’t devalue the kid and ignore his emotional problems, don’t let him out of your sight long enough to run off to a warehouse in Ethiopia, don’t let him see Bruce’s final message and let the Lazarus Pit take over.

A history of don’ts – and a history that seems to be repeating itself, albeit with someone else.

Maybe it doesn’t matter who wears the cowl. Maybe even if he  _does_ try to fix Bruce’s mistakes, the thing is cursed to send each Robin to an early grave.

Or maybe it’s just Dick that’s cursed; to be the last one standing while his family dies around him.

Again.

“Hey.” The voice cuts into his deteriorating mood; Jason, standing at the edge of the kitchen, holding two new bottles. He walks back over, handing one to Dick. “Stop that.”

“Sorry.” He says, accepting the bottle.

The roll reversal is, admittedly, a bit weird.

With the exception of the first one, it’s normally Dick who initiates these nights and keeps things light.

About eight months after officially becoming Batman, he’d opened the door to one of his safe houses and found the Red Hood bleeding out on the carpet. Considering how things went down after Bruce’s death, it was honestly a bit surprising.

But Jason was (is, always will be) family, and Dick couldn’t just turn him out.

He patched Hood up and wasn’t surprised in the least when he woke up the next morning and the bloodstain was the only sign that Jason had been there at all. Dick figured that would be the end of it, but about a week later the guy showed up at the Penthouse, a six-pack and Monty Python in hand, but not a word about what had happened.

Things escalated.

Once a week, more if they patrol together or crime is slow that night, they pick a safe house and drop off the grid for a while. Maybe sometimes they get a little drunk; other times they get a lot drunk. Either way, they spend the night ordering pizza and heckling whatever critics think is the best television show at the time. It’s relaxed; no pressure, no expectations, and as far away from anything that could set either of them off as possible.

Sometimes Dick thinks that being able to just be  _around_  someone without the weight of the cowl or needing to set a good example is keeping him sane, in a way.

Maybe it even helps keep Jason sane too.

They normally avoid shop talk, but there are exceptions. When they’re working a case together, or if one of them has a critical lead to pass on. Or if something serious is happening, or has happened to someone and one of them can’t wait for a particular night to roll around.

An exception to the rule is drinking with Jason on a weekday afternoon, and knowing that he knows something is up. _And_ knowing that he probably knows what’s about to come out of Dick’s mouth, because they’ve both been keeping tabs on –

“Tim,” Dick says, finally breaking the silence and drawing Jason’s stare. “Tim got into some stuff with Ra’s al Ghul and, well. Those explosions that have every major city on high alert? That was him.”

“Jesus  _fuck_ , Dick. Seriously?” Jason looks like he isn’t sure if he wants to laugh or cut Dick off from any more alcohol.

“Yeah.” He answers, voice nearly flat. “It was a bunch of League bases, apparently.”

Jason settles on laughing, loud and thoroughly amused by the concept of the kid he’s tried to kill taking out most of the League. “Wasn’t sure Replacement had it in him. Kid’s got some  _balls_  to bring the fight to Ra’s like that.”

Jason pauses, contemplative. Sips at his beer before saying, “Probably shouldn’t be surprised though, what with the way the little fucker has absolutely zero sense ‘a self preservation.”

Dick  _wants_ to deny that, to say that Tim is anything but reckless and tends to have at least ten contingencies to pull things out of the fire when he has to.

Jason has a point, though.

“And you wouldn’t be comin’ in here and mopin’ around unless some sorta shit went down.”

Jason knocks the rest of his beer back, putting it back on the coffee table with a  _thud_. Leans back against the armrest, eyes trained on Dick’s expression. “I’m guessin’ that’s why you broke inta here askin’ me ‘bout Nanda Parbat. I got an idea where ya’ going with this, Dickiebird, but ‘chu gonna hav’ta spell it out first.”

Thing is, he probably  _doesn’t_. People tend to take one look at Jason’s height and impressive musculature right before immediately underestimating his intelligence.

Most of those people are dead.

Somehow, this doesn’t get easier each time he tells it.

“One of the places he blew up was the Cradle, in Turkey. Tam – Tamara Fox - was with him before it went up. He sent her out of the blast zone and she came back to Gotham –  _by herself_  – with nothing but a flash drive. I asked the Birds to cover for me and got to Istanbul as fast as I could, but…” He takes another drink, bracing himself.

“Ra’s’ people had already cleared the place out. Thing was empty; just a scorched cave and wrecked computers. Traces of blood, no bodies.”

Jason props a foot on the coffee table, crossing his arms and frowning. “And Ra’s is the right kinda sick where he’d leave a dead bird for ya ta’ find, even if he cleared the rest ‘a ‘em out. Send a message ‘bout fuckin’ with him.”

And if anyone had experience with that sort of thing, it would be Jason.

“Yeah.” The word is heavy on Dick’s tongue.

And that’s the crux of it; Ra’s  _didn’t_  leave that message, and everything the man does or  _doesn’t_  do inevitably ends up as part of a convoluted, long-term scheme. It’s why he’s one of Batman’s more dangerous Rouges.

If Tim were dead, Ra’s would want them to  _know_. He’d be practically crowing that he’d killed one of  _the Detective’s_ protégés. Or, rather, that said protégé had died in the attempt to move against the Demon’s Head: the price paid by those who would defy his will.

But Ra’s hadn’t. And when a man as ego-driven as that doesn’t say anything in this situation, it’s a good bet he’s hiding something.

Like Tim being alive.

Hopefully.

It’s Jason who finally speaks. “Nanda Parbat ain’t an easy place ta break inta. You’re gonna need help, Dickiebird. ‘Specially from someone who’s been there.”

It’s hard to forget the way that Jason came back to them, and how it happened in this single city where all of their lives seem to converge with Ra’s scheming.

The help could be invaluable, and Dick  _wants_  to say yes. Wants it so badly he can feel it in the way his muscles tense up when he forces out, “Damian. I’m bringing Damian.”

Jason kicks him from across the couch, but not as hard as he could have. “Fuck you too, Big Wing. I didn’t have ‘ta offer.”

“ _No_ , Jay. It isn’t like I don’t  _want_  you there –  _I do_. But someone needs to watch Gotham and, if anything happens to us,  _someone with a rocket launcher_  seems like the best bet to get us out.”

Dick means that.

Leaving Jason in charge of Gotham isn’t a permanent solution. If the Pit madness rears its ugly head, it won’t even be a  _good_  solution. But, infiltrating Nanda Parbat can go one of two ways and both will be over relatively quickly. Either they’ll be back before anything bad can happen, or Jason will come and get them, which forces him to leave Gotham long enough for the Birds of Prey to come up with some contingencies. Assuming they don’t have them already. He’d honestly be surprised if Barbara  _didn’t_.

“Heh, that’s starting ta sound more like my kinda plan, Goldie. Rather be with you an’ Demon Brat though – some bastard snatches Baby Bird? ‘Course I wanna part ‘a it.”

Dick still thinks it’s bizarre that they stuck this little truce when he wasn’t paying attention.

“I’ll give him your regards.”

“Sure, if you can talk him outta beatin’ ya half to death ‘afore ya can get a word in edgewise.” Jason laughs at him like he doesn’t think that’s overly likely.

There is so much that Dick wants to  _say_ to that. Year old regrets and the worry that’s plagued him in the time since. His fear for what Tim has gotten himself into, and if the other vigilante will even  _accept_  his help if he were to offer it. The last time he’d done that… hadn’t turned out so well for either of them.

But, still. They don’t  _talk_ about this sort of thing. And even if Dick wishes he could ask Jason for his insight into what’s going on in Tim’s head, he doesn’t want to chase Jason off with  _that touchy-feely shit ya don’t talk ‘bout till it comes back ta bite ya like a crowbar to the face._ Which had been all Jason would say on the matter, despite Dick’s efforts to the contrary.

Apparently having enjoyed enough of Dick’s pain, Jason gets right back to business.

“Well, weather you want me along or not, you’re  _goin’_  ta need some help just gettin’ there. The Brat might remember some ‘a the layout, but I doubt he’s ever had ta  _break_  in.”

“And you… have?” Do the wonders never cease?

“Nope.” Jason says, popping the p. “Don’t even know where the fuck it is…but you’re in luck. I’m still on terms with some people in the League, so let me ask around  _before_  ya go chargin’ in an’ get killed by ninjas or fall off a mountain or some shit. And if that doesn’t work–”

Dick almost has to double take.

“Did I just hear you advocating for the subtle approach? Who are you and what have you done with Jason Todd?” Dick laughs, mostly at Jason’s expense.

He looks indignant. “Hey. I’m full of surprises. How do you think I get the drop on  _you_ so often.”

It’s Dick’s turn to look offended. It’s not  _that_ often. Mostly.

“But, seriously? You’re willing to help.”

“You go deaf in the last thirty seconds, Big Wing? Ask again and I just might change my mind.”

Dick doesn’t think he really  _would_ , but better safe than sorry. He settles for asking, “How long do you think it’ll take? I don’t know what Ra’s wants with Tim, but…”

Jason sighs, expression twisting like he’s fighting off some old memories, “Look. If Replacement’s where you think he is, an’ Ra’s hasn’t killed ‘im by now, he ain’t gonna. Least not without tauntin’ you ‘bout it first.”

He runs a hand through his hair, mussing the short, white lock from his resurrection. “I know a place. Might find somethin’, but it’s gotta be tonight. If Ra’s’ got Tim, he know we’ll be lookin’ for info. Probably tell everyone who’s League to get outta Gotham, too. But we _might_ be early enough to beat that message.”

Jason holds his beer up, staring at the diffusion of light in liquid. “How you feelin’ ‘bout a little _breaking and entering_ , Goldie?”

“I thought you said you were on ‘terms’ with them.”

Jason bats down Dick’s air quotes as soon as they start.

“Didn’t say  _good_ terms.” He growls out, in a tone of voice telling Dick he probably doesn’t want to know the details.

“On account ‘a which,” Jason continues. His look is sharp. Appraising. “They ain’t likely to talk easy. Gonna need to bag one and … _work ‘em over_ a bit first. I’m gonna do it with or without your say-so, Dickie, but if you’re _insisting_ on helpin’ out, I need to know you’re on board with this.”

And maybe it’s times like this that he’s just a little more flexible than Bruce; that he’ll do what he has to – up to and including letting  _Jason_ do what he has to – to get Tim back.

“Just.” Dick pauses, not really sure how to say what he’s about to say. “Tell me when you find one. I’d like to be there.”

This time,  _both_  of Jason’s eyebrows rise, almost to his hairline. “You  _sure_  about that, Dickiebird? I know you got certain  _feelings_ ‘bout my …  _methodology_.”

Dick stares him down, unwavering.

“Just call me.”

At that, Jason shrugs, seemingly getting all the confirmation he needed from that. “Your funeral.” He says, because  _of course_ he couldn’t resist getting that last shot in there.

Dick just glowers at him. “Drink your beer.”

Jason obliges.

 

…

All things considered, Tim has slept in  _worse_ places.

Being a Robin and a full time high school hadn’t left much time for sleep, so Tim is more than used to taking his naps where he can get them.

He’s slept through school trips when he was a civilian, on quarantined Gotham rooftops while he was in costume, and once, rather memorably, on a  _roller coaster_.

Zoanne hadn’t wanted to go on another date for  _months_  after that one.

So, no, waking up in the middle of an assassin fortress – crushed between the cushions of an overstuffed couch with an armored tunic digging into his entire torso – isn’t the  _weirdest_  way he’s ever woken up.

But it’s up there.

Tim blinks into the early morning darkness, willing away the discomfort that comes from falling asleep in  _any_  uniform, Gotham or League. He’s … less than successful. The longer he lies there, the more the couch’s embroidery presses hard ridges into his skin. There’ll be lines by dawn.

Whenever that happens to be. The room is still mostly dark and, as far as Tim can tell, only brightened by the scarce light filtering by the curtains by the balcony.

Eventually he gives up, shifting enough to wrench one arm out from the couch’s vacuum and feel blindly through the dark for the tunic’s catches. They slip through his fingers twice, three times before he manages to get a good enough grip to activate them, pulling a quiet groan from his throat at the sudden loosening.

He throws the tunic on the floor, listening for the soft  _thump_  of the stiff armor hitting the carpet as he flops back against the couch. Tension leaks from his muscles, leaving his limbs like deadweight resting on the cushions. He sighs; apparently dying really takes it out of you.

“You would know, sport,” says –  _someone_. Not more than three feet from where Tim is lying.

He jumps, sitting up and drawing his legs close enough to get under him if he needs to fight. Or to run. His arms fly to ready positions; the opening stance of a defensive kata.

On the other end of the couch, a person-sized shadow hunches over in the dim light. Average height, maybe on the short side. Hard to determine build with the way it’s hunching over. The voice itself is distorted, gravely and wheezing like the batsuit’s voice modulator after a throat punch from Bane.

It is also incredibly,  _distressingly_  familiar.

With all the bad guys with strange powers they come across, Tim doesn’t think for a  _second_  that it’s actually the person they want him to think it is. He’s had two years to come to terms with this, to really  _understand_  that for some people, there’s no coming back, no second chances. No Lazarus Pits.

Just how it should have been with him.

He’s buried this ghost – figuratively  _and_  literally – too many times to count.

“What do you want?” Tim asks, not without malice. It’s as good a question as any, he supposes, from one dead man to another.

“You’re not dead if you don’t stay dead, champ,” The  _thing_  says. Like it’s reading his thoughts.

Fuck, it even might be.

But it isn’t the voice he would expect from this sort of thing; and most of him thinks that if whoever is doing this  _really_  wanted to mess with him, they could at least bother with a decent approximation of his father.

Not that Tim would really have much to compare it to. He spent most of his childhood too separated from the man to remember what he sounded like, and he spent the few, brief years after his father woke from the coma running around on Gotham’s rooftops instead of staying home with a stranger and playing the good son.

He’d tried that, once. Didn’t work out too great for anyone involved.

“We can’t all be Bruce Wayne, Son.” It says, stilted. Like it’s reading off of a script of all the stock phrases he’s ever suspected ran through his father’s brain. “But I guess that was never good enough for you …”

“Stop.” Tim growls, retreating as far as the couch will let him. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, or why you think  _this_  would work, but just cut to the damn chase and tell me why you’re in my  _goddamn_  head.”

It’s the low, sick-sounding laugh that sends Tim shuddering more than anything.

“What, boy? Don’t even recognize your old man when he comes to visit?” It says with a wet, squelching sound like it’s breathing through half-destroyed lungs.

“You’re  _not_  my –”

And the thing is turning, unraveling from its hunch with jerking movements until it stands beside the couch. Tim nearly falls off of the armrest he’s perched on.

The thing is rotten like a zombie, black decay eating at its edges. Clothing and skin hangs off of its emaciated form, torn in uneven slices. Tim could count its ribs, if not for the dark blood dripping from its chest. It clings to its skin, soaks through its tattered dress shirt, turning white into a vicious spreading crimson. At the center of it, a single steel curve protrudes from between the third and fourth ribs, shining dully in the faint light from the balcony.

_Boomerang_ , Tim thinks, eyes widening in reflexive terror.

Tim doesn’t want to,  _can’t_ look up, but he has to and –

That is, unmistakably, his father’s face.

Rotten and bloodstained, split in a gaping, split smile.

Tim is going to be sick.

The thing steps towards him, its movements halting and stiff like a corpse just settling into rigor mortis.

“I know I’m a little worse for wear, sport,” it says, the words rasping out of torn lips. The grin doesn’t leave its face, “but I’m still your father.”

Its eyes are a bright, nauseating green.

“I only want what’s best for you.”

Tim is across the room, vaulting over the bed and making his way to the balcony before the thing can grab him with its outstretched, half-skeletal arm. The night is cold against his skin, and he’s shaking too badly to even  _try_  and grip the small section of exposed wall. The thing is shuffling closer, around the bed, across the room that isn’t  _that_  big and towards Tim with absolutely  _nothing_  in its way –

If Tim can’t go up, he’ll have to go –

“It would only be fair.” The  _thing_  with Jack Drake’s decomposed face is at the balcony, lurching closer. Tim backs up, so far that he’s nearly on the railing before a sharp, steep drop. “First your mother, then me, boy. Don’t get me  _started_  on what you’ve done to Dana…”

The thing  _lunges –_

Its hands fist in Tim’s loose tunic, pulling him close enough that he can  _smell_ the rot on the revenant’s breath, can see  _things_  wriggling beneath its skin. Like something straight out of Scarecrow’s sick concoctions…

“It’s always been you Tim,” it  _hisses_ , “it’s always been your fault. We’d be alive if it weren’t for you. Bruce would be alive,  _Connor_ would be alive. The Pit should never have brought you back in the  _first_  place, but  _now_ , you can’t even  _control it_.”

And it’s letting go and Tim is  _tipping_  back, about to plunge over the balcony, for nearly a second before the thing pulls back on its grip on Tim’s tunic, leaving the upper half of him suspended above the dark of Nanda Parbat. Its fingers feel like ice in the places where they brush Tim's skin.

“How long before you let it in, let it own you, let it  _kill_  for you…”

“ _No_.” Tim says, barely more than a whisper. “I would  _never_  –”

The thing smiles wider than Noor, wider than a hostage dosed with Joker gas, its lips tearing at their edges, blood dripping, skin splitting and curling up to reveal the white of its teeth and jaw.

“It’s only a matter of time,” It says, the words spat through clicking bone.

And then it lets go.

And he’s  _falling_  and –

Tim opens his eyes. He doesn’t jolt awake.

It isn’t like in the movies; like some unseen terror digs claws into his muscles and sends him flinging himself half off of the overstuffed couch, tearing a scream from his mouth for good measure.

None of that.

What Tim  _has_ , is a sudden awareness that he is no longer asleep. His eyes drift open to stare blankly into the gradation scale of the unlit room, body still and loose for all that his heart is threatening to beat a hole straight through his ribcage or let its vibrations turn his organs to mush. He is uncomfortably aware that yesterday’s clothes are made of soft, thin fabric that grasps at the cold sweat chilling his skin.

The tunic is … on the floor. That part was real, at least.

A ... nightmare. Maybe. Flashes, at best, haunt the edges of his consciousness; red and black and glowing, lurid  _green_  paints the back of his eyelids every second he can’t keep them from falling shut. He shudders with the glimpses, even though it’s only the tail edge of something doubtlessly horrific.

Tim hasn’t woken up like this in years. Not since he was a little kid sleeping alone in a too-big house, right after he first put on the R. Since he was only afraid of everything being ripped away from him and hadn’t faced down the inevitability of loss first hand.

Bruce trained the worst of it out of him, pushed him to his breaking point until he was too tired to regularly dream good  _or_ bad. But the worst of the nightmares never really go away.

He’d see them in Dick, the few times he’d snuck out to Blüdhaven in the dead of night. There was familiarity in the way he’d tossed and turned, sheets and blankets strewn around the floor by his thrashing. The way he’d murmured  _Catalina, no,_ please _stop… please_ into the empty night.

Tim had turned on the lights, throwing him back into consciousness, and Dick had claimed amnesia. He wouldn’t talk about it, still wouldn’t by the time Tim left Gotham, even though, out of anyone, they would  _understand_.

Even Damian, who had been trained for this life from practically birth, still woke stiff and shivering on occasion. In the scarce time between Bruce’s disappearance and Tim’s departure, he’d spent sleepless nights watching the kid slink across each security monitor until he was close enough to push through Dick’s door more times than he’d cared to count.

Tim has never asked Jason what he screamed about in the middle of the night those few times Tim had crashed in one of his safe houses.

After tonight, he doesn’t think he wants to know.

It’s the most he can do to find enough leverage to get himself off the couch. Overstuffed as the cushions are, they feel as if they have their own gravity, sucking him in.

Across the room, Pru is still sleeping, seemingly snoring her way through drunken oblivion.

Tim pushes off from the couch, leaving behind the mess of cushions and terror-induced sweat. The rug is thick and warm against his bare feet, but he barely feels it as he circumnavigates the pre-dawn dark of the room. Wind-blown curtains brush against him when he approaches the balcony, their gauzy lightness fluttering around him like ghosts. He bats them away, walking to the edge.

It’s just as it looked in his nightmare; sharp and steep. Quick, if anything, for all the good it would do.

_He’s just going to put you in the Pit again if something happens…_

Tim may be a lot of things, but he isn’t a liar. Not in this – he won’t break his promises.

The stars shine dimly. Soon they’ll be overtaken by the sunrise to the east, though Tim cannot see the start of it from his room’s balcony. Far below, Nanda Parbat is waking up, getting ready to face another day.

How do they do it?

“Tim…?” He almost startles, not expecting a voice from inside the bedroom. He doesn’t turn around. Something about hearing Pru say his given name will always be disconcerting. “What are you doing?” She asks, only a faint undertone of drunkenness in her voice.

It isn’t what she suspects, probably, but Tim backs away from the railing all the same.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he says. He isn’t sure if he even  _wants_  her to believe it, but –

Pru snags his hand as he makes his way to the couch, yanking him back onto the bed. It’s only the familiarity of her manhandling him that keeps him from lashing out at the unexpected contact. But the bed is still warm and Pru seems to be in one of those moods where she’s more worried about him than she is busy waiting for an excuse to put him in a head lock, so he goes along with it, settling in with a lack of regard for personal space that had been borne of necessity on missions anywhere north of the arctic circle.

Pru is like a furnace, but his muscles feel as if he’s just been dragged out of the Gotham harbor in January.

“Hey…” Pru starts, with the same quiet she reserved for their first post-Lazarus meeting, “You want to talk about it?”

Tim glares at her silently.

“Well, Birdy, lucky for you I ain’t in a talkin’ mood.” She says, grabbing one of the pillows that had been shoved to the headboard. She wraps her arms around it, shoving her face into its side to shut out the meager light.

Tim closes his eyes, letting his head fall back against the bed. Neither of them sleeps.

 

**…**

_Fuck_ are these ninja bastards hard to catch.

He has contacts and informants all  _over_  Gotham, and somehow the best they could bring him is an  _address_. An old address, at that, of a supposedly abandoned office complex.

Or not so abandoned – but that’s not the point. No schematics, no patrol routes, just a big, hollow  _maybe;_  testament to how tight Ra’s runs his operations.

But not so tight that he doesn’t have what he needs. Because when the Red Hood’s involved? An address is  _enough_.

It’s a high-rise sort of thing – set up in one of those Gotham neighborhoods that was rich twenty years ago but now? It’s _just_ _upper middle class_.

The worst part about living here has to be the ‘stigma’; working street lights, trash-free streets, and architecture that’s seen renovation sometime in the last decade, but there’re still assholes who’ll turn up their noses at it because it isn’t  _trendy_. Place has more money than Jason  _ever_  saw as a kid –

Hood takes a deep breath, pushing the old, instinctual anger back down. The idiocy of the rich doesn’t  _really_  have anything to do with the current operation, though it does make him itch for a little trip to the Heights just to show ‘em what’s what.

Maybe later. Now, he can’t spare the attention.

Buildings in nicer neighborhoods – even ones the socialites insist have fallen into ‘disrepair’ – aren’t harder  _or_ easier to break into. They just come with a whole different set of challenges.

Before the Narrows were Hood’s territory, Jason spent near half his ‘childhood’ jimmying locks, and spent the  _other_  half avoiding spontaneous gang fights – every day hoping he could make his fingers and bobby pins move  _fast enough_  to get through doors before a bad shot and a stray bullet came calling his number.

Just an everyday, situational hazard of the location.

Same way that now, skulking in the shadows of the rooftop across from Ra’s barely middle-class Gotham headquarters, the job’s more about dodging streetlights and keeping an eye out for passing cops; things that just  _weren’t_  things in the Narrows.

Still aren’t, really. Hood can’t do much about the streetlights, but his claim on the streets the people who there more protection than the law  _ever_ could. And even if the police  _did_  bother to answer calls from Hood’s little haunt … it ain’t really  _justice_  without some  _guarantee_  of revenge.

And Hood’s all  _about_  revenge.

Just like these ninja bastards are about to find out.

In the  _lead pipe meets ribcage_  kind of way.

A fella can’t just fuck with a situation only  _family_  has a right to fuck with and expect to get away with it when it’s a situation that Hood can  _do_  something about.

Something like introducing his fist to a couple of ninja’s  _faces._

Hood braces himself on the edge of the rooftop, aiming  _just_  right so his ‘borrowed’ grapple gun snags the railing of the building’s rooftop access. From there, it’s easy enough to swing through the shadows and use the leverage to climb the side.

He should help himself to Dickiebird’s collection more often.

Beautiful thing about planting an undercover headquarters in Gotham? Can’t exactly post security on the roof without someone getting  _suspicious._  And those cameras? Heh, Oracle might not be able to break into Ra’s network this short notice, but that doesn’t mean a few well-placed gunshots didn’t take them out  _ages_  before they could spot him.

Possibly the only real use he has for silencers.

Breaking into here, he  _knows_  his hands are set to be twitching for the semi-autos, but he’d  _pinkie promised_  not to actually kill anyone. Sort of. No word on beating the fuck outta someone and leaving them for dead. Or shooting them in creative places.

Which, if Hood’s honest, is what’s  _gonna_  happen. He’s always felt the need for loose fucking constructionism when it comes to application of the Bat’s code.

Well, Dickie’s code now. And that ain’t  _ever_  gonna seem normal – how’s he supposed to keep his trophy for Gotham’s finest ass if no one can see it through that cape?

The thought nearly has him laughing by the time the ninja realize their security feed is down.

From the shadowed side of roof access, it’s too  _easy_  to hear the footsteps running up those stairs, even if it  _is_  ninja doing the running. Can’t be too stealthy around the guy who spent his resurrection stuck in a goddamn city full of them, you know?

It’s funny as  _fuck_  when the first one bursts out onto the roof, looking around frantically like he’s actually expecting to  _see_  the intruder.

Silly ninja, stealth is for the pissed off vigilante aiming a  _fist_  at your  _face_.

The ninja hits the ground, out cold. So do the next two when he drives an elbow to one of their faces and his knee into the other’s crotch. And since he just  _happened_  to come across some of Dickiebird’s zip ties just  _lying_ around for an opportunist like himself to take advantage of…

Eh, even if the guy doesn’t already  _know_ , he probably wouldn’t put up too much of a fuss at finding out. Not that Hood really  _cares_  what Goldie thinks one way or another.

The ninja end up zip-stripped together, tied  _securely_  so he can suspend them from the building’s ledge for added  _effect_. Their faces? No way they wouldn’t be  _hilarious_ when these fuckers wake up. Also helps that anyone deciding to look for the missing patrol won’t find them till they get real  _creative_  about their search parameters.

In their rush to catch  _whoever_  could have  _possibly_  out the cameras, the ninja didn’t bother to lock the door behind them. Good job, morons.

Hood takes the stairs quickly, moving much more quietly than most men his size would be capable of. He’s subtle enough, apparently, to catch the next patrolling ninja completely by surprise, taking her down when she’s standing  _right next to_  the alarm.

Because apparently the ninjas won’t even make this  _interesting_.

If this were any other time, on any other mission? Yeah, he might think about unscrewing those silencers and shooting out a few kneecaps  _just_  to make the night worth his time. Sound a few alarms, knock a few heads, and hit the bar for a nightcap after dragging the assassin he’s looking for to an abandoned warehouse and torturing the  _fuck_ out of her.

Well, three out of four ain’t bad.

The League has it coming, too, setting up in  _his_  city without so much as a ‘by your leave.’ Not a situation that’s exactly conducive to his keeping the gangs under control. So he thinks he’s  _more_  than justified in kicking a few of these bastards, even when they’re down.

But Hood can’t waste too much time on that. He  _is_  here for a reason, and as much as hurting Ra’s standing in Gotham strengthens  _his_  claim on the underworld, it isn’t his  _primary_  motivator.

He pistol-whips a ninja on the back of the head, watching them slump to the floor.

He’s almost where he needs to be.

And maybe, just maybe if there had been a few more ninja to hit between the roof and the control center, he wouldn’t have slammed the sole of his boot into the door so hard it flies off its hinges with a  _bang_  –

But probably not.

The ninja inside, startled as  _fuck_ , scramble – but not fast enough. See, not being legally alive gives Hood  _lots_  of time to practice stuff like quick draws and pinpoint accuracy.

They don’t see it fucking coming – three rapid-fire gunshots slamming into the shoulder, thigh, and hand – respectively – of the three guards. Maybe the League’s Gotham branch is slacking on the training, because it’s way too  _easy_  to use their surprise to get in  _close_.

A roundhouse to the first ninja’s chest, a left hook to the second’s face, and a heel  _right on_  the shoulder where he’d shot the third ninja earlier send the fuckers to the floor.

He is  _not_  channeling Dickie’s fighting style tonight – just needed a leg workout. Really.

The ninjas stack nicely in the room’s center, smack dab in the middle of the space between the open door and the surveillance feeds and far, far away from anything they could use to get the drop on him. He pulls over a convenient chair, sinking into it and kicking up steel-toed boots to rest on the equally convenient ninja pile.

If she’s going to make him  _wait_ , he may as well be comfortable.

Beneath him, a ninja groans. He slams a boot down to make the noise stop, rolling his eyes. Get better at fighting or  _grow the fuck up_.

Comfortable or not, it’s a boring-ass fifty minutes before the woman shows up.

‘Cept...

There’s a total fucking eclipse of the hallway’s light. Also – minor detail right now – that  _ain’t_ the woman he’s after.

Out of the two assassins on the Eastern Seaboard that Hood  _knows_  have the coordinates he needs, the exact asshole Hood  _isn’t_  looking for steps through the doorway.

Due in no small part to being near three hundred pounds of impossible-to-transport-to-the-torture-warehouse muscle.

_Fuck_. He’s bigger than Hood thought. This guy’s  _Bane-sized_.

Hood throws his chair, scattering the ninja pile to slow the man’s charge – and it works, sort of, for about half a second before the guy just stomps  _over_  them. At least one of those cracks sounded like a spine.

_Yeesh_.

Hood ducks and rolls, letting the guy’s momentum carry him into the waiting monitor bank with a resounding  _crash_  of metal and a groan through the helmet’s synths – he was  _really_  looking forward to smashing those himself.

Sasquatch over there doesn’t seem to care about anything like  _calling dibs_  though, just shakes off the shards of glass and turning to face Hood like a bull pissed the fuck off by the color of his helmet.

Sub-optimal isn’t really cutting it right now, especially when the guy works up to charge number two.

Give Hood a bigger room and he’d be fine. Big and stupid is  _easy_  – just jump outta the way before the charge hits. But  _this_ guy. This  _guy_. Fuck him.

Big and not-as-stupid-as-he-looks feints the charge, basically telling Newton’s second law where to stick it when he turns on a goddamn dime to send a fist right at Hood’s  _head_.

Or his helmet. Whatever. He ducks down, landing on both arms and sending a boot flying up at the guy for the  _money shot_.

Maybe it would have worked too if the guy wasn’t wearing a cup. Since the worst a steel toe can do to a person prepared enough to wear a steel cup is create a  _nasty_ sorta ring, Hood pulls his foot back as fast as he can manage before the guy grabs it.

Anyone else and he’d  _let_ them. Up against most people who aren’t built like Killer Croc, Hood’s an unmovable wall of solid muscle. Someone else – say,  _Dickiebird_  – grabs his foot, and they’re gonna  _fly_.

But this motherfucker?

Yeah, Hood’s not going there.

He jumps back, out of range of those two meaty hands and –  _shit!_ – trips over one of the goddamn deadweight ninja. Where does Ra’s  _find_ these useless fuckers?

Question for another day. A day when the bodybuilder version of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man isn’t trying to ghostbust his undead ass. With a  _bodyslam_.

“Fuck!” Hood yells, rolling out of the way as the Mount Everest of muscles crashes into the ground where he just was.

But that kind of attack comes with recovery time, and Hood’s escape puts one of his hands just close enough to… yes.  _Jackpot_.

Gloved fingers close around the handle of his semi-automatic, quick on the draw and firing one, two, three shots into the guy’s right knee. That shit ain’t weight-bearing  _anymore_.

Doesn’t stop the guy from crawling though. That reach is  _long_ , and it’s more Hood’s instinct than anything that has him firing another shot at the guy’s outstretched wrist –

The gun clicks, empty.

Or he  _would_ , if he hadn’t used  _his last three bullets_ immobilizing the guy.

Where’s a goddamn AK-47 when you need one?

Hood settles for bringing his boot to the guy’s head, laughing at the sharp  _crack_  of the man’s jaw shattering. After that, it’s just a quick lunge forward, one arm braced on the floor and  _bam_. Fist bashing down on Sasquach’s head in  _just_ the spot to knock him  _out_.

Fuck, he already used ‘Sasquach.’

And the guy Greenpeace would rescue thinkin’ he’s a  _beached whale_  slumps, down for the count.

Heh, Hood shoulda brought a fuckin’ harpoon.

He flops back, breathing deep and ragged with fading adrenaline. Laughing like a  _bastard_  because he still  _can_. Takes more than an assassin with his own gravitational pull to bring  _him_  down. Maybe the asshole should have planned ahead and brought a crowbar.

It’s a few minutes before he sits back up, making sure the guy’s still alive enough to interrogate.

His eyes are rolled back in his head and a slow trickle of blood is running down his temple, congealing, but his eyes still dilate in the light of the remaining monitor.

Close enough.

Dragging the guy to a sitting position is  _almost_ harder than the actual fight, but Hood manages. There is no way he’s getting this fucker to the warehouse… at least without  _help_.

He taps a hidden button on the side of the helmet, activating the communicator pre-tuned to Batman’s frequency. “Hey, Dickface. Gonna help me with a pickup?”

A solid ten seconds of silence.

“You need my help to carry someone shorter than  _Red?_ ”

“Pfft, you  _wish_.” He kicks the guy on the ground for good measure. “No, asshole, she didn’t show. The guy who  _did_  could eat both’a us for breakfast and still have room for Gotham’s own Demon Brat. Ya feel me?”

If Hood didn’t know better, he’d almost think Batman  _laughed_  at that.

“Okay, sure. If you’re still at the base, I can be there in ten.”

Beneath his boot, the man groans.

“Better make that five, Goldie. ‘Less you wanna help me fight Godzilla here back into unconsciousness?”

“I think I’ll pass. See you in six.” Batman says, probably just to be contrary. Well,  _fuck him_.

Hood keys the countdown into his wrist tool and leaves the comm running, just to show anyone who’s listening how  _awesome_  he sounds beating up planetary body-sized assassins without fucking dying in the process. Or, you know, to guilt them in case this ends with him in the ground.  _Again._

The zip strips are… a bit too small for this guy. But Hood’s resourceful, even if that means taking out his grapple line and going all Eagle Scout on the fucker’s wrists and ankles.

He’s finishing the final touches just as not-Bane’s eyes snap open.

The nice thing about the helmet – you know, aside from air filtration, built-in modulators, and being  _badass_  – is that they never know  _where_  to look. On the outside, thing’s all smooth, red metal; no one knows where his eyes even  _are_  under it.

So the assassin  _definitely_ doesn’t see him narrow them right before he smashes the shiny,  _hard_  surface of his namesake into the guy’s  _fucking face_. Doesn’t knock him back out, but it  _is_ gratifying.

All he gets in response is a wet, meaty growl and some blood dripping out of the guy’s complementary nose job.

“Hope you got better ‘n  _that_  once we get down to business,” Hood says, just so the bear wearing a man’s skin knows what’s coming and can think  _long_ and  _hard_ about what he wants to say when it does. “Heh, ‘cuz you  _know_  your boss ain’t gonna be happy ‘bout what went down all in here. Might wanna think ‘bout how many fingers you wanna have left when he gets ‘ta ya.”

The living Buddha statue on steroids narrows his eyes in leiu of responding.

“You ‘n me? We’re gonna be real  _good_ friends by the end ‘a this.” He pats the side of the guy’s face hard enough to make one pronounced cheek ripple. His victim isn’t  _nearly_ as amused as Hood is, going by the way he tries to bite off part of his hand.

He yanks the hand back before those teeth even make it to his gloves. Too bad.

Hood looks at his wrist tool: three minutes since he started the timer. Gives the assassin a quick once-over before looking back at the device.

High tech, holograph display; a Wayne Tec R&D special that he wouldn’t be caught  _dead_  with except…

It was  _Tim_  who forced it on him. It showed up in a pretty package with a veiled threat taped to it a few weeks after the bastard walked half-dead out of his own safehouse - straight to the  _League_ , apparently - and Jason  _let him._ Thank god Dickie hasn't heard about  _that_ yet, or Jason would never hear the end of it. But, still. The bastard may have been parading around in one of Hood's old costumes, but by then he’d gotten over the urge to kill him for it. Something about the twerp _repeatedly_ pulling Hood's ass out of a firefight or two, even when Hood had thought he'd thoroughly - and  _gleefully,_ at the time - burned all those bridges between them. And you can't just say  _no_  to that kinda good will, especially when – once the Lazarus high drains out of your system – you probably don’t  _deserve_  the help anyway.

And Hood may not  _like_  owing people, but breaking that little asshole out of Nanda Parbat is enough of a hassle to  _more than_ cover the kid patching Hood up a few times and shoving fancy tech in his face until he either grabs or  _swallows_ it. The Replacement didn’t really give him much of a choice on that one.

But if it’s going to help with the rescue attempt, even a little? Fuck it, he can tell the kid where to shove his charity cases  _after_  they save his ass.

Which is a process that’s gonna be starting  _tonight_. Soon as Dickie gets here and helps Hood move this  _motherfuker_  to a nice, quiet, warehouse where no one will hear him  _scream_ when –

The distinctive  _pop_  of a gun fires from somewhere to Hood’s left, and the assassin’s head snaps  _sideways._ Blood splatters  _all over_  Hood’s jacket.

He  _likes_  this jacket.

But … more important things right now.

Like how Steinbeck was fuckin’ right and his best lead on actually  _finding Tim_  was just fucking  _assassinated_  in front of him.

Hood whips his head in the trajectory the bullet came from.

Standing in the doorway, a woman is silhouetted against the hallway’s light. She’s on the short side, arm extended, gun in hand. He can’t see her expression, but he imagines it’s dispassionate at best.

An hour late, but somehow  _right on fucking time_.

“You have failed the Master.” She says, all cryptic like. He isn’t sure if she means the formerly dead guy, or the current one.

Hood rocks to his feet, drawing the gun that still has bullets. “An’ you’re  _about_ to, sweetheart” He growls, firing the gun at her left leg and embedding two bullets in the wall when the woman just  _isn’t there_ anymore.

Hood runs to the door, catching Batman’s attention on the shared frequency. “Did you hear that? She fucking  _shot_  him  _right in front of me_.”

Batman makes a sound that probably wishes it was a swear.

“Where is she headed?”

He ricochets around the corner, shooting at her as she runs up the stairway roof access.

“Up! You here yet, asshole?”

He hits the smooth metal of the rooftop, listening for the faint but distinct squeal of the Batmobile’s tires in the distance. She’s at the edge, but Jason has his sights trained right at her forehead.

“Don’t fucking move!” He shouts like it’s going to do any good.

The assassin just gives this cheeky little wave as she makes to dive off and…  _fuck_ , he needs her  _alive_. Hood readjusts his aim to her leg, squeezes the trigger and gets a decent through-and-through on the meat of her right calf as she falls.

He reaches for the grapple and… he used it to tie up the other assassin. And he’d only ‘borrowed’  _one_.

Fuck it. If they don’t catch this bitch tonight, Dickie won’t be able to  _stop_  him from raiding the Bunker’s  _entire goddamn armory_.

“Where is she?” Comes over the comm. Speak of the Bat…

“Went flyin’ – East, looks like. Lost my fucking grapple…”

“I  _said_  you could take more than one!”

_“ _Fuck you!_ ”_

In the street below, the Batmobile turns a sharp corner; rocketing past the building in pursuit of a woman they don’t even have a tracker on.

But she ain’t getting far with that leg.

Hood reaches up for the seal on the helmet, pulling it off and sucking in the Gotham smog. Until he gets a resupply, ain’t much he can do from up here. But Oracle has cameras all  _over_ this fucking city and Replacement is the only one besides Babs who knows where all of them are.

The assassin bitch can hide, but she won’t make it outta Gotham.

After all this trouble, Ra’s better be keeping Baby Bird alive, or Jason’s going to kill the bastard  _and_  find a way to make sure that asshole ain’t coming back.

With a huff of annoyance, he turns back to the stairwell to see if his line is still in one piece, or else to find his way down.

In his periphery, the Batmobile careens into the distance, out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to  artificiallifecreator   
> who has done some fantastic beta work for Deadfall - Thank you for being awesome!
> 
> Potential TWs:
> 
> \- more alcohol, though in less unadvisable amounts  
> \- Jason (in general)
> 
> If you noticed that there was an update lag for this chapter, it's because the semester is starting soon (tomorrow, actually) and updates will be slowing down so I can focus on academics. They will still be happening! - just not necessarily on a timely basis. 
> 
> Thank you for your patience, and stay tuned for chapter six :D  
> 


	6. Revenant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge shout out to artificiallifecreator for her fantastic beta work, keeping me going with her awesome ideas, and making my grammar somewhat intelligible. All remaining mistakes are my own.

The only indicator that time passes is the room’s subtle shift from shades of grey and gunmetal to coming alive with color under Nanda Parbat’s morning.

Tim must have slept at  _some_  point, because the next time he pries his eyes open, the room is cast in late-morning light and a small table has been set at the foot of the bed and piled with what looks like various forms of breakfast. Or possibly lunch.

Pru seems to have beat him to the discovery; she is standing at the foot of the bed with a piece of bread halfway to her face when Tim sits up, and she only pauses for a moment before shoving the entire thing in her mouth.

For as long as he has known her, Pru has only had two post-binge modes: hungover and hungry enough to eat an entire continental breakfast bar. No points for guessing which one it is this time.

She doesn’t break eye contact with him as she seemingly swallows the hand-sized piece in one bite. Tim isn’t sure weather to be disgusted or intimidated, so he settles on a little bit of both.

“Fmurgh, ets ‘rlly.” Pru manages to say around what probably passes as eating. Tim is vaguely reminded of that time he went on a school trip to the Gotham zoo and saw a python swallow a small bird whole.

“Try chewing  _and_ swallowing,” he suggests, grimacing at her, “It’s what all the cool kids do these days.”

Pru flips him off. Tim manages a small smile.

“I said,  _fuck, it’s early_.” Pru says with exaggerated enunciation, grinning at his eyeroll.

“It’s  _nine in the morning_ ,” Tim corrects her, exasperated.

“And that’s  _fucking early_.” Pru growls out, pulling out the watch she uses on long-haul missions and squinting at its face. “How did you even…”

“Because.  _I’m Batman_.” Tim says, because, honestly, it’s the best answer to everything.

He just barely dodges the flying flatbread – the entire thing, this time - and the cup of  _something_  that follows it. It’s a good thing he doesn’t particularly care about the state of Ra’s guest bed sheets.

Tim stares at the slowly growing puddle of… what  _is_ that? Yogurt? Some sort of rice pudding? Tim isn’t quite sure, but he spends a solid five minutes staring at it in contemplation before Pru finally breaks the silence.

“You gonna eat any ‘a this, Birdy?”

Tim’s look is measured.

“… no?” He says, though it comes out as more of a question.

“You mind?” She gestures at the rest of the table.

Tim has absolutely zero doubt that she will find a way to make the entire table’s contents disappear, one way or another.

“Not at all.” He says, not expecting a response as Pru goes hunting through the pile for  _something_.

Another span of time passes before she comes up for air.

“You know,” she starts, turning her laser-focus gaze on Tim, “Some ‘a us might get in trouble if you’re actually gonna try to starve yourself. That ain’t what you’re doin’, is it?”

“There isn’t a safe way for me to answer that, is there?” Tim asks, ducking to the other side of the bed to avoid another somewhat identifiable breakfast object.

“Well, Birdy,” she holds up a circular, flat piece of bread, waving it in front of Tim’s face, “You can eat one ‘a these lovely  _balep korkun_ that some poor sod was probably woken up before the arse-crack of dawn to make for you…”

The bread goes flying, and Tim catches it with his hands rather than his face.

“Or I can tell the Demon you ain’t eating, and  _he’ll_ do something about it.”

Tim glares. Pru smirks.

“And as much as I’m sure he’d love to hold you down and put somethin’ in that pretty mouth ‘a yours…”

Half of the bread goes flying back in Pru’s direction. Her scramble to dodge it sends at least a quarter of the table’s contents flying across the room. Tim shoves the other half of the bread in his mouth before she can finish that comment.

Out of the wreckage of their breakfast, a formerly full bowl rolls across the room’s doubtlessly expensive carpet, trailing  _something_  behind it. From her new position –sprawled across the floor – Pru watches it with the silence of someone calculating if she’s going to be charged for dry-cleaning something worth more than she makes in a decade. Tim keeps his face as blank as he can make it, but a small, traitorous laugh escapes all the same.

Pru’s eyes snap to him, locking onto his position on the bed. This time, it’s her turn to scowl.

Tim sees it coming a second before it happens.

He scrambles back across the bed, but the sheets are silk and slippery, and there’s only so much he can do when faced with the full speed ahead charge of a pissed off League assassin.

She’s across the room and flying at him before he gets more than halfway to the headboard, crashing into his torso and knocking back against the bed. His breath  _wooshes_  out of him, forced from his lungs by her impact. Bat training be damned, the disorientation of it lasts just long enough for her to get him in a headlock and start unceremoniously ruffling his hair.

For a single, breathless, nearly  _panicking_  moment, his eyes fly open and he’s  _terrified_  to see that sickly green tinge –

Tim blinks twice, three times. Nothing. His hair is rapidly becoming a bird’s nest and he’s caught in a hold by one of the League’s deadliest agents, but his vision is as clear as it’s ever been.

Pru lets him out of the headlock. Tim elbows her in the side with only half the force he’s capable of, listening to her laugh as he impacts with her ribs. No one dies.

It’s a solid ten minutes before either of them bothers to speak, but when Tim finally does –

“You don’t know if there’s a comb or a brush in here or something, do you?” He asks her, turning his head to the side as the static worked up by their altercation sends his hairs standing on end. Because priorities.

“No idea, Red,” she says, putting a finger to her chin in mock thought before turning to him with a smirk that would make the  _Joker_ nervous, “Guess we’re gonna just have to cut it all off.”

“And look like you? Fuck that!” Tim says, jumping back across the bed for the second time that morning. Pru gives chase, laughing maniacally as she draws the dagger from the holster strapped to her hip and tackling him off the bed.

It is a battle for the ages. Miraculously, no one ends up rolling into the bowl’s contents currently responsible for ruining Ra’s carpet.

By the time Tim’s escort for the morning finally makes an appearance, he’s nearly forgotten  _why he shouldn’t be letting his guard down in the middle of the enemy’s hidden ninja castle._

But Noor seems to have a particular talent for reminding him of his reasons to be wary. One second he’s aiming a half-strength roundhouse at Pru’s head, and the next the wide, double doors to his room are being thrown open and he’s being slammed against the wall with so much force that he sees stars. The wall is smooth and cold against the thin fabric of his tunic and the bare skin of his arms. His hair is, somehow, even more of a lost cause.

Tim’s vision clears to probably the third creepiest smile he’s had the displeasure of witnessing, but no visible weapons.

He wonders, sometimes, what pre-Robin him would think of his standards for silver linings.

Tim isn’t sure if it’s better or worse that the most Noor does is press a set of freshly laundered, still warm clothes into his chest – pulling up one of his arms and wrapping it around them to keep them in place – before walking out of the room without a word. She doesn’t bother to close the door, either.

From the space between the bed and the balcony, Pru leverages herself to her feet.

“Think that’s your cue, Birdy. Better get ready.” She says, crossing the room to take the clothes from Tim.

Black fabric trimmed in green; Pru shakes out a pair of loose, thick pants and a shirt just as insubstantially diaphanous as the one he’s woken up in twice. At her vague grunt and head jerk, Tim crosses the room to retrieve the armored tunic from where he’d left it earlier that morning. The lines it left in his skin the night previous have yet to fade completely.

Begrudgingly, he lets her shove him into the small, curtain-covered alcove which turns out to be a modern, western-style bathroom. Linoleum. Fluorescent lighting. A set of overly plush-looking bath towels in a deep green color that Tim would bet half of his Wayne Tech research and development budget is the exact match for Ra’s ridiculous cape. They have a small, handwritten note on top of them in a precise, familiar cursive scrawl. He doesn’t bother to read it, instead throwing the card back at Pru when she hands him the new clothing.

Pru does bother. Her only reaction is a raised eyebrow and something that might be a smirk or might be a grimace – Tim isn’t sure he wants to know.

The creepiness of the towels aside, it feels like stepping over the threshold transports him from what is essentially his imprisonment in Nanda Parbat to what could have been a room in any one of his Gotham safe houses.  Somehow, even after waking up in a Lazarus Pit, finding an unrealistic amount of green things growing in the middle of a hidden, snow-surrounded League fortress, and judging a ninja-versus-assassin drinking contest, to Tim this still feels like one of the most bizarre things about this entire experience.

Pru seems to sense his confusion.

“They aren’t  _all_ like this,” She says, reaching back to place the card on a table set outside the curtain at the room’s entrance, “But some parts of the fortress can get a bit… out of place? He probably put you in this one for a reason though.”

“Is  _that_  what the card says?” Tim asks.

“Er… no.” Pru’s eyes slide sideways in a way that isn’t  _at all_  suspicious.

She doesn’t bother to turn when Tim – against his better judgment – drags the towels to the stylistically incongruous shower. Not that it’s anything she hasn’t seen before; long missions and cramped quarters do little to preserve anything even resembling privacy.

Tim glares anyway, holding the expression until Pru relents, holding both hands up in surrender and stepping out of the bathroom.

He does  _try_  to be quick about it, but the sheer magnitude of soaps, lotions, and one or two disturbingly unidentifiable substances is a bit mind-boggling. He doesn’t even have a way to test them for poisons or anything … else that might be transferred topically. The process is more trial and error than anything, and Tim eventually settles on something that is nondescript except for a slight mint smell.

And the shower  _does_  seem to have a limitless supply of hot water.

By the time he emerges – using the provided towels to dry off with no small amount of suspicion – and gets changed, Noor has appropriated the room’s couch for the most  _paint me like one of your French girls_  pose he’s seen since the last time Catwoman and Nightwing faced off in Gotham.

Maybe Talia had something to do with her training at some point.

It must be something in his expression, because Pru starts laughing her ass off the second she sees him. She does, at least, throw a comb that she seems to have found  _somewhere_ in the room so that he can fix the mess she made of his hair.

Not that his hair-control efforts amount to much; the wet strands still obstruct his vision and sit uncomfortably against his neck. Though it’s the least of his problems, he really does  _not_ want to go into Nanda Parbat’s snow-covered landscape like this, no matter how well the temperature is controlled.

Pru hasn’t stopped laughing.

“Didn’t know we were going for drowned cat impressions, Red, or I might’a joined you in there.” She says it through helpless laughter, nearly doubled over with it. Tim stares, deadpan.

“You may have some difficulty drowning him in a shower,” Noor says, without much inflection, “but I believe you possess the ingenuity to make it work.”

Tim isn’t sure if she’s joking.

“Regardless,” Noor starts, unfolding herself from the couch and walking to the room’s heavy doors. She knocks once, and they swing open to reveal a contingent of five heavily armed ninjas.

“Today, we show you our city,” she says, smirking, “and, we ‘show you the ropes,’ as she might say.” Noor gestures to where Pru has mostly managed to compose herself.

“By which you mean…” Tim asks, eyes narrowed.

The only answer he gets is something dark shoved close enough to his face to obstruct his view of the rest of the room. It takes more effort than it probably should to get them back to a reasonable distance, since Pru – on the other end of said objects – seems hell-bent on force feeding them to him.

Where she even pulled them out of, he didn’t see.

By the time he pushes them away, spluttering somewhat incoherently, he realizes that they’re a pair of combat boots. The look sturdy and, somewhat suspiciously, like they’re exactly his size.

One of these days he’s going to figure out how Ra’s manages to do that and then, if it’s anything like what Tim is assuming, he’s going to need an entire gallon of brain bleach to forget.

He glares at Pru over the top of them, and she jerks a thumb to indicate he should put them on.

“You’ll need them,” she says, smirking.

He does, but not without his fair share of antagonized mumbling.

Pru, as always, seems to find humor in his discomfort. Noor is impassive, merely gesturing to the armed ninjas. With impressive synchronization, they move to surround Tim, creating something of an honor guard.

Or a prisoner escort.

Seemingly satisfied that he won’t make a run for it, Noor leaves the room without another word, expecting him to follow. Pru falls in step beside Tim, shoving him forward when he seems disinclined to move.

For better or worse, he lets himself be led out into the city.

 

**…**

Jason is slouched in front of the Bunker’s main console, feet kicked up on the desk, when the Batmobile  _tears_  into the docking bay.

The door to the underground entrance slams shut behind it with a sense of finality.

The abused grapple line tangled between Jason’s hands strains with tension, fraying further at the point where tall, wide, and  _dead_ had tried to snap it before his appointment with a well-placed bullet.

With a  _woosh,_  the Batmobile’s doors open upward, like dark wings of ill fucking portent. Jason glowers in their general direction.

The cable snaps.

“Where the  _fuck_  is she,  _Dick_?” Jason growls as Batman version two steps out of the car, the anger and frustration in Jason’s tone reflected back at him in the expression beneath the cowl.

Dick marches towards him, each footstep like a goddamn death knell. He doesn’t stop until he’s standing right in front of the chair Jason is lounging in, towering above him like he wouldn’t be  _so_  much shorter if Jason stood right the fuck up.

Jason lets him have the temporary height advantage, but doesn’t take his feet off the desk.

“ _What._   _Was_.  _That_.” Dick nearly snarls, the voice modulator making him sound uncannily like the first asshole who wore that suit.

“What was  _what_?” Jason spits back, “The part where you were  _late_ , or the part where you  _didn’t manage to catch one injured assassin?_ ”

Dick looks like he’s about as close to punching someone who isn’t a thug or in the Rogues Gallery as he ever gets.

“How about the part where your  _inaccurate_  intel let her get away? The details are  _important_  Jason,” he pauses, flipping back the cowl like a prissy bastard before pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers, “ _you_  should know that.”

And it’s been a  _long_  time since he’s felt the  _green_  rising as that kind of stupid provocation, but he’s just about  _tempted_  to –

“Oh, like  _you_  care about the details,” He says, sarcasm dripping from his words. “E-fuckin’-specially when they’re ‘bout you kickin’ Tim the fuck outta Gotham? Ain’t that why we’re in this mess in the first place?” He asks, face all innocence as Dick’s contorts in anger.

And he’s ready. Oh, he’s  _ready_  to catch the punch that he just  _knows_  is coming. Getting ready to smile and laugh like a goddamn bastard at this  _asshole_  what thinks he’s perfect losing his fucking  _flawless_  composure over his own goddamn mistakes.

Dickie’s ready too, looks like he  _is_  gearing up to make this argument  _physical_  and –

“Boys. Composure, if you would be so kind.”

– and ain’t that just a voice that could get Diana fucking Prince off the verge of killing a man. Like someone flipped a goddamn switch, Dick’s head whips to the side, shamefaced at Alfred’s disapproving expression.

By the Batmobile, the demon brat tuts like the smug little bastard he is, like he was just  _waiting_ – _wanting_ to see how this kinda fight was going to play out.

The conflict resolution butler from hell looks Jason straight in his helmetless eyes, and he ducks his head away, getting out of a position practically screaming  _bring it, dickhead._

_Not_ because he feels bad. It’s just that… well…

“If you are  _quite_  finished, there are certainly more productive uses of your time.” Alfred’s expression, longsuffering and just a step away from harried, doesn’t budge an  _inch_.

It’s testament to the situation more than anything that his stiff upper lip is anything other than perfect under the stress of  _another_  Robin’s life being on the line. “Contacting Ms. Gordon for more information on this assassin’s whereabouts, perhaps?”

The interruption saves Jason from finishing that thought, at least.

“Sorry, Alfred,” Dick says, almost slouching in the batsuit as he turns to walk into the armory. With a glare at Jason, Damian follows, head held high.

If Jason had half a mind to wring that little brat’s  _neck_ …

“Master Jason,” Alfred says, half warning at Jason’s grim expression.

He looks up, wondering how prominent the dark, sleepless smudges under his eyes must be. Alfred’s just about the only person who can look at him with an expression  _that_  sympathetic and not get a fist in their  _gut_.

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, Alf,” he says with just as much contrition as he can force his tone into and slumping back into the desk chair.

Given his experience making sure two and a half generations of vigilantes didn’t kill each other (or themselves), Jason isn’t really surprised that Alfred seems to take it in stride.

“All is forgiven, Master Jason. Although,” the pause is just long enough for Dick to drag himself out of the armory, dressed in loose sweats and a t-shirt, and for dread to begin prickling beneath Jason’s skin, “Although, you could be so kind as to stay for a rather belated dinner, if you do not have any more  _pressing_  obligations.”

Like it isn’t nearly midnight and _long_ past Alfred’s old man bedtime.

But he’s known Alfred long enough to hear the  _‘I will not take ‘no’ for an answer, young man_ ’ implied by the phrasing.

Across the room, Dick half-flinches before making that face he always does when he’s resolved to single handedly make everyone get along.

Jason resolutely does  _not_  run a hand through the back of his hair in slight annoyance. He isn’t here to  _play nice_  with the Replacement’s replacement and the asshole who all but said this entire shit show is  _his_  fault, but…

Alfred’s expression is stern in a way that implies dissent will not be tolerated.

A quick glance around the Bunker’s lower levels determines that the exasperated sigh jar is nowhere in sight, so no one can yell at Jason for engaging in  _that_  particular offense.

“ _Fine_ ,” he grunts, standing from the chair to go and sling an arm around Dick’s shoulders. Dick winces, for real this time. In Jason’s defense, it’s only  _mostly_  a headlock.

“Just don’t let this one cook, yeah?” He says, his grin just a little too savage to be conspiratorial, “I eat enough cereal as it is.”

“That was  _one time_  –” Dick starts to protest.

“Very well,” Alfred says, cutting in with the tone of a butler unsurprisingly  _not_ in the mood to referee any grudge matches in the foreseeable future. “I expect you will  _all_  clean up and be properly dressed before reaching the dinner table. Master Damian?”

“ _Fine_ ,” Damian hisses. Dick’s mentioned once or twice the unholy delight the kid seems to take in going against the stringent cleanliness requirements of his upbringing. His room in the penthouse could apparently give some of  _Tim’s_  safe houses a run for their money in disorganization.

The doors to the penthouse elevator slide open, and Jason only pushes Dick a  _little_ as he gets inside.

 

 …

It’s less of a tour through Nanda Parbat than  _around_  the Nanda Parbat. The walls stretch for – by Tim’s estimate – miles, encircling the entire city, rising between the mountains or carved into their sides. Beyond the sheer mass of rock, heavy, grey-white clouds press close, but not so close as to fill the valley with fog.

Far below, on the other side of the wall, the civilians of Ra’s al Ghul’s domain go about their daily lives. From his vantage point, it’s easy to see the patches of green scattered in between the buildings.

Agriculture, apparently.

At Tim’s distance, he can’t quite make out what they’re growing, but he concedes that it makes more sense for Nanda Parbat to be some sort of self-sustaining rather than bringing supplies in from … whatever might be in the area. If his suspicions about the city’s location are correct, there wouldn’t be much in any direction but monasteries. Or, more likely, other League bases meant to guard the mountains leading into Nanda Parbat.

Tim uses the new angle to make some brief tactical notes about the city’s layout – mentally editing the notes he’d made earlier on the balcony in his provided room.

The far more interesting view is at the far end of the city. They reach it after walking for more time than Tim would like to think about, spending a good deal of the day skirting the walls. It isn’t until Tim has reached the easternmost point of them that he sees the pass that Ra’s people must use when they need to access the city by foot.

The view is … breathtaking.

Beyond the ramparts, the mountain range seems to fall away into a white, snowy abyss stretching out into the distance. The snow almost glitters in the sunlight, interrupted by the occasional outcropping of rocks.

He can see nothing even vaguely resembling civilization.

It’s at least  _one_  thing Ra’s isn’t lying about, even by omission. Unless Tim stole some seriously weather resistant, warm clothing, a significant amount of provisions, and gear meant for traversing mountainous areas full of steep drops and avalanche potential – assuming he could even get that much past the guards – he isn’t going anywhere.

Plan ‘find Ra’s’ bunker and steal a plane’ is still very much in effect.

Not that his ninja guards seem particularly willing to let him out of their sight for  _that_  to happen.

“So, I have to ask –” Tim starts, getting Noor’s attention where she’s been silently leading them for most of the morning.

She barely turns at the interruption.

“Do you really?” She asks, her voice dulled by boredom and, Tim suspects, a general lack of stabbing.

Next to him, Pru snickers, though she looks about as bored as Noor sounds.

“ _Yes_.”

The emphasis at least seems to hold her focus, prompting her to stop and turn to face him, arms crossed in front of her.

“Is there a  _point_  to this,” Tim asks, exasperated, “other than Ra’s trying to send a message about how slim my chances of getting out of here are or, apparently, giving me enough time to memorize the layout for any potential escape plans.”

Noor grunts something that Tim suspects means  _no_ , but offers no other comment.

“Okay…” no answers appear to be forthcoming, so Tim tries a different tactic.

“What do  _you_  get out of this then? Or is it just that Ra’s is going to censure you for insubordination if you don’t?”

That sound may actually be Noor grating her teeth. Tim isn’t too keen to find out.

She looks at Pru like she’s waiting for permission for … something.

Pru just shrugs, looking out at the city below.

Noor stares.

Tim ….

“Alright,  _fine_.” Pru snaps, voice edging on desperation. “Just stop doing …  _that_.”

The staring doesn’t stop, but the lower half of Noor’s face breaks into one of those wide, uncomfortable smiles Tim has come to associate with her; she tugs a loose tie from her hair and her ponytail falls free, and she pulls it back it a more secure knot.

She pulls a second tie from her utility belt and tosses it at Tim.

He catches it, easily, giving her a skeptical look.

Noor gestures upwards at his hair, dried hours ago and, despite the comb Pru managed to turn up, probably a lost cause. It’s longer when it’s wet, but that doesn’t mean that when it dries it is  _short_.

“Use it, do not use it – I do not care.” She says, sitting back on the wall’s parapet. If he kicked her backwards and over it, he wonders if she’d leave much of an impact in all that snow. “But it will be  _much_  easier for you to run without  _that_  –” Her expression tells Tim  _exactly_ what she thinks of his hair. “– falling in your face.”

Again, she doesn’t explain why that’s what she  _wants_  to get out of being a glorified tour guide, or why Ra’s, via Pru, would grant her that specific request.

Tim squints at her, but makes use of the tie all the same. She seems impassive about it, at best.

“So,” Tim says once the offending hair is out of the way, “do I get to ask  _why_?”

She gives him a look like she’s reevaluating his intelligence, likely on a downward curve. “The Master has placed me in charge of your regimen of exercise, to be administered at lease once a day, with the goal of … let us call it keeping you ‘fit’.”

She doesn’t specify what it’s supposed to keep him fit  _for_.

Tim doesn’t ask.

“This is,” Noor pauses like she’s searching for the right words, “the most mutually beneficial option.”

Tim raises an eyebrow. "What, is this a test? Want to see how well I remember the tour and if I can apply it to navigating your little rat maze?" While also providing an excellent opportunity to shake his guards and look for that aircraft hangar –

Pru leans close, whispering quietly, “She has fifteen knives on her  _minimum_ – I checked earlier – and she knows how to use ‘em. Maybe don’t call her a “rat”, just sayin’.”

Tim barrels on, sneering, "We passed within sight of at least a dozen rooftop gardens, there's a market bigger than some  _towns_  one hundred feet north of here-"

"It is only a ‘test’," says Noor, "of how well you can outrun me. I do not think you can, but there is some disagreement on this point." She looks to where the other ninja have broken formation to whisper among themselves. At her glare, they quiet and shuffle backwards.

“And I would like the opportunity to stab you. One of Prudence’s bottles of whisky is contingent upon it.”

“Hey!” Pru says, whipping around to glare at her. “What do you mean, one of my –”

“And if I don’t  _want_  to run?” Tim asks, cutting her off.

Noor pulls a knife from somewhere, flipping it in one hand. Someday, he’s going to ask Pru if the League actually has a class on hiding several of those on one’s person.

“I stab you regardless,” she says, throwing the knife high enough for three rotations before catching it by its blade. “And Mahesh loses his wager.”

One of the ninja seems to subtly move to the back of the group when Noor smiles at him.

“And then, they-” She gestures to the rest of Tim’s guards. “-will hold you down and I will practice stitching wounds shut without anesthetic.”

She doesn’t look like she’s kidding.

Not that Tim particularly cares. He’s done more than  _stich a knife wound_  without anesthetic – on  _himself_ , no less.

“Do I look like I give a shit about whatever game–”

“You have five minutes to make a decision. Or, five minutes to start running. Your choice.”

And, really, she may as well just stab him for all that he cares. If he had any hangups about something as insignificant as  _pain_ , he wouldn’t have become a vigilante in the first place. But –

Five minutes is a lot of time in the cape and cowl game. Enough to turn the tables on his captors, if he’s smart. Enough to sneak away and find a way out, if he’s lucky.

Bruce always had  _thoughts_  on relying on luck, but.

It’s a chance to get out before Ra’s puts whatever he’s planning for Tim in motion, to  _escape_  and go … somewhere. He’ll figure that part out later.

But running isn’t really much of a choice at all. His pants aren’t nearly as aerodynamic as Noor’s ninja gear, but the boots Pru shoved in his face seem sturdy enough. Nothing like he’d be able to put together given one of his Gotham safe houses and some materials from Wayne R&D, but …

“Four minutes,” Noor says, using the knife to pick something microscopic out from beneath a well-manicured nail.

Pru raises a single, somewhat less well-manicured eyebrow at Tim; it seems to say  _remember Panama?_

And Tim  _definitely_  remembers Panama.

He sidesteps around her quickly and, when he passes close, grabs the knife she keeps strapped to her hip. It’s easy enough, with the thing sitting in a holster that hasn’t been able to close for as long as Tim’s known her. Out of the goodness of her heart and the threat of the ninjas stealing her whisky, she doesn’t even try to trip him.

And then he’s off, tearing down the wall and towards the nearest way down.

Four minutes is barely any time, but every second counts in their line of business. Tim veers toward the wall. If he can reach a way down, he can disappear and find that aircraft hanger …

“Hey, arsehole!” Pru yells out behind him. When Tim glances back, she’s waving what looks like one of her semi automatics in the air. The ninja guards jump backwards, looking very much like they have extensive experience with Pru’s itchy trigger finger. Noor just stands from her spot on the parapet and stares.

“You grabbed the wrong one!”

“Keep it!” Tim yells back. He hasn’t been out of Gotham for  _that_  long.

Distantly, she growls out something that might be “bloody hell,” or might be – considering how close he is to the edge of the wall and her feelings on the ninjas getting into her alcohol – “do a flip.” It’s hard to tell with Pru.

Noor says something in response, but not loudly enough for him to catch it.

The flagstones disappear behind his feet, as he speeds down the wall. Not too far away is a ladder leading down into the city and –

_Perfect._  The wall drops straight into a crowd that is thick, but not so full of people as to hamper his progress. The first step to losing his tail in and, Tim thinks with the first thing like  _hope_  that he’s thought in a long time, finding a way to get to that aircraft hanger before they can catch him.

He almost makes it, too.

He’s on the first few rungs, still in view of where Pru is probably rolling her eyes and Noor is standing still with her hand drawn back and –

Something glints in the space between them, fleeting and bright for a moment before slamming into Tim.

It slips through a seam in the tunic and embeds between his ribs with a slick  _thud_ , shaking his grip on the ladder. And suddenly he’s  _losing_  his grip and has only a couple of seconds to see just how far and fast the blood is flowing from the knife wound to darken the thin fabric of the tunic before –

Blood isn’t supposed to be a bright, virulent green.

And neither is the sky, but the cloud-scattered dome of its new, nauseating color is the last thing he sees before the rage is gripping his lungs, clawing its way through him and there are  _civilians_  below him and he’s  _falling_ –

 

…

The door closes firmly behind Damian, his mostly-eaten breakfast left downstairs and nothing but an uninterrupted Saturday before him.

He should be training. He  _wants_  to be training, but.

Pennyworth insisted that they all needed a day to get their bearings, and Grayson backed him on it.

Damian resists the urge to slump against the dark wood, but allows himself a small sigh at being finally, mercifully  _alone_.

No Grayson to insist he eat  _everything_  he put on his plate. No Todd – who, inexplicably, was  _still here_  an entire nine hours later – to keep putting more on it when Grayson’s back was turned. No Pennyworth to… well, Damian supposed Alfred was alright, training ban aside. He’d convinced Grayson to  _finally_ let him leave, and he  _had_ named his cat for him, after all.

Breakfast was enough to make him almost miss the days when he would begin each day with only simple but filling of foods to prepare from that day’s training. His mother would be there when she could, and his grandfather never bothered to be there at all, but mostly he would be left in peace but for the ever-present guards.

But… he supposes it isn’t  _all_ bad, having company. Even if that company is incredibly  _infuriating_.

He lets his head fall back against the door, relishing in the thump that echoes through his room. Of course there were doors in the League, though …

It is still something of an adjustment, albeit a pleasant one, to have a room that is  _his_. To be anywhere or do anything he wished without an escort of guards trailing him to ensure his ‘safety.’

As if he couldn’t have, as Todd might say, ‘handed them their asses’ with little to no effort.

But being alone  _and_  left to his own devices with a concept as alien to his upbringing as  _free time?_

Damian had been trained against indulgence, but his mouth curves into a wide, almost reckless smile as he locates his pencils and sketchbook and places them down on his desk.

In the League, the few hours of his day not devoted to training or his lessons were spent in meditation so that he might hone his mind as well as his body.

They had not necessarily been  _enjoyable_ , at least in Grayson’s conception of the term.

It was he who insisted that Damian acquire pastimes not dedicated to improving some aspect of his prowess and standing as an assassin of the League.

As his Grandfather’s  _heir_.

He may call Ra’s al Ghul family still, but freeing himself of  _that_  title was … gratifying, to say the least. More so than he had initially thought it would be.

He who would inherit the League could never be caught doing something so frivolous as  _drawing_. But, now, this sketchbook is only one of many that lay scattered around his room. He is certain he could locate them if given sufficient motivation.

Probably.

Damian is not afraid to admit he has come to enjoy this  _hobby_ , as Grayson insists on calling it. To create something from nothing, rather than simply refining what he has been given…

Like the allowances given to him in how unorganized his room may become before someone – usually Alfred – insists he clean it, the concept of something belonging to him and only him was another thing he had learned upon forsaking his heritage.

The only one in the League to truly  _own_  anything is his Grandfather, and that definition extended from the smallest ammunition cache to the highest-ranked assassin. All of it was considered property of the Demon’s Head.

But he can claim ownership over Damian no longer.

And what Damian creates with the  _art supplies_  – his use of which Grayson seems so approving of – is truly his. The work of his hands, and not that of his Grandfather’s by proxy.

Tea with an ample amount of sugar diffused in it – another thing his Grandfather would certainly find disgraceful – sits to the side of his desk, the steam curling up around the incandescence of the lamp he uses to draw.

Damian finds more peace in this than he ever found in his Grandfather’s meditation. In one of the few indulgences he has allowed himself; there is one to impress with it, and no need to prove himself. Though, it is with no small amount of pride in his abilities that he has come to believe he is at least above average at rendering whatever his brain may think of in terms of line and shape.

Better, certainly, than Grayson or his father, from what he has seen of their attempts at sketching whenever a mission may require it.

Better, without question, than  _Drake_  ever has been or ever will be at it.

Damian scowls at the errant thought, running a hand through his hair.

_Damn him…_

Good mood effectively ruined, Damian can no longer avoid his purpose here.

He had been hoping to finish few still-life as a warm up first – if there was a reason for putting off cleaning his room other than that he  _could_ , it was to make his drawings more of a  _challenge_  – but.

Let Grayson be grateful that he sacrifice something so precious as  _free time_  to help him in his pointless search for a useless failure.

Damian begins with a harder pencil, good for sketching out the details of corridors and passageways taking form in his mind, and pulls the sketchbook closer.

If he also punches a very specific set of numbers into the phone Grayson gave him – which he has inspected  _thoroughly_  for data mining programs and tracking devices – and places it on its speaker setting to better allow himself range of movement, well, he has checked his room for surveillance devices several times and is confident that this will not be overheard.

The phone rings for exactly as long as he expects it to – long enough that the tea is not hot enough to burn by the time she picks up.

“Who is this,” she says in a clipped, annoyed tone. It is not truly a question, but it is expected. The League is very careful with their security, and Damian is always certain to scramble his communications to keep his own number free of detection.

“Hello, Mother,” Damian says, listening for the near-immediate moment of recognition when her tone changes from guarded to something approaching warmth. She had given him this number for a  _reason_ , after all.

“ _Habibi_ ,” she replies, the sound of a smile brightening her words. “It has been far too long.”

Damian resists the urge to groan – he is too  _old_  for this – and says patiently, “It has only been a  _week_ , Mother.” Against his best efforts, though, some of his exasperation creeps into it. “I have been on missions with complete radio silence for  _far longer_ , and –”

“Yes, I know. I know, Damian.” Her interruption sounds fond rather than annoyed. “But it is still  _too long_ , I never see you anymore, and it is not as if your  _father_  is there to look after you .…”

“ _Mother._ ” This time Damian  _does_ groan. Across several continents and a somewhat irritating amount of static, his mother laughs. “I do not need  _looking after_ ,” Damian continues, futile as this argument has become in the last few months.

She sighs.

“I know.”

Beneath Damian’s pencil, the rough sketch of a sprawling city is taking form. He switches to a softer graphite to darken some of the light lines of architecture. The moment of conversational silence stretches on.

They have been doing this every weekend, missions permitting, for at least half a year. It has not stopped feeling strange to speak to her through a phone.

In the League, Damian’s mother was (and, most likely,  _is_ ) not known for her particularly …  _maternal_  presence.

She is an expert in blades and poisons, an uncompromising drillmaster in the training of their troops, and an unparalleled strategist in dealing with the League’s enemies and allies both. A leader on the frontlines, respected and feared.

But she is also the woman who pushed him hard, harder than anyone, but knew to say  _enough_  when Damian had been training for days and could barely stand, let alone proficiently block a sword strike. She instilled in him a wariness of others’ intentions and made  _certain_ he would always know to have a fallback plan if ( _when_ , she always said) his allies should prove untrue, yet she spoke to him of his father with nothing but respect and admiration, though they fought on different sides.

Though she never said as much, Damian  _knows_  she is the one who convinced his grandfather not to attempt to have him killed when he came to Gotham permanently.

And he would not ask her about this, normally. She has done much for him, and he is loathe to beg favors of her when he knows he disappointed her with his leaving, but.

If his mother taught him to survive, Grayson taught him to  _live_.

And neither is a debt Damian knows how to repay in full.

“There is something,” he starts, at length. Damian pauses, collecting his words, but does not pause overlong, or else she might scold him for beginning something he cannot finish. “Something I need to ask you. About the League; about my predecessor,  _Timothy Drake_.”

His mother hums noncommittally, as if he had spoken of something of little importance. The weather, perhaps.

It is as good a sign as any that she may be receptive to the line of questioning.

“I saw what happened to the League’s infrastructure, and we know that Drake was behind it. But we have heard  _nothing_  of it from Grandfather, and Grayson did not find a body at the point of origin.”

“Perhaps there was nothing left?” His mother asks. He does not know if her enmity runs as deep as his towards those unworthy few who claim his father’s legacy, but her tone of voice is flippant, as if she would not care one way or the other.

A perfectly understandable viewpoint on the situation of Drake’s body, albiet one that is inherently unhelpful to Grayson’s distress.

“Mother.” She knows as well as he does that his grandfather would never be able to resist the chance to gloat over something involving his father.

“Very well,” she sighs, though somewhat reluctantly. “You have a point, of course, but I simply do not know. He has been more distant in the last year, distracted by this new  _toy_  of his, and we have not exactly seen eye to eye on it. ”

Damian’s sketching slows to a halt. He’s finished the lines, and really  _should_  get started on the preliminary shading but…

“So it is true,” he asks, instead. “Drake  _was_ working with the League?”

It isn’t a question.

“ _Yes_ ,” his mother says, frustration bleeding into her tone. “I was _quite_ familiar with their arrangement. Your grandfather’s little  _game_  with him had become … irritating, to say the least. No acquisition is worth such trust or  _that much_   _destruction_. And for _nothing_ , too, since he died before your grandfather could –”

“Would it be possible,” Damian asks, cutting her off. Whatever his grandfather wanted from Drake, Damian  _does not want to know_ , “that if he were, hypothetically,  _alive_ , grandfather could be keeping him somewhere?”

While she decides how – or, potentially,  _whether_  – to answer that, Damian begins shading. He remembers quite keenly the way that the sunlight fell on the mountains surrounding the city, reflected by the snow.

He has made substantial progress by the time she resumes speaking.

“ _If_  that were the case,” she says, and Damian knows his mother’s voice well enough to know that she is suppressing anger at the suggestion that his grandfather would pursue such a course of action, “I  _suppose_  it is possible. He has not contacted me since the incident,” a point in favor of Grayson’s theory, Damian notes, “so I would not know of it.”

He gets the impression that if she  _did_  know of it, Drake would be as dead as Damian suspects him to be. For all that he is no longer counted among the League’s ranks and thus has no stake in someone else’s destruction of their bases, Damian can empathize.

“Would it also be possible that grandfather is keeping him in Nanda Parbat?”

The silence is pointed, and a thousand meanings are hidden in it. Given his grandfather’s track record with bringing people to his secret city, there is good reason for it.

For a moment, Damian thinks she is going to hang up. Perhaps to avoid answering. Perhaps to storm the city and demand answers.

“ _That_  is a rather serious charge,” his mother says, “but perhaps not one without basis. I will … inquire about the situation when next I visit, but –”

She weighs her pause effectively, using it to build the authority in her next words.

“Do _not_  allow your  _colleagues_  in Gotham to intercede in this,” she says, “ _if_  he is alive and  _if_  you grandfather is pursuing such a course of action, convincing him to cease and desist may be more difficult than they can even imagine. Let those  _experienced_  with handling your Grandfather’s  _moods_  diffuse the situation. They would only make it worse.”

When he is about to do something particularly imbecilic, Grayson has been known to say something inane about impossible things and breakfasts.

Damian sighs.

“ _I_  do not particularly care what Grandfather does with Drake. Or his corpse.” he says.

“ _Grayson_ on the other hand,” Damian pauses to put down the pencil he’d used for shading and to pick up the kneaded eraser waiting to clean up the smaller imperfections in his lines, “do  _not_ underestimate his commitment to this. I do not believe he will simply  _accept_  Grandfather’s more … eccentric tendencies.”

“Duly noted.” His mother says it as if Grayson and, by extension, any commitment on his part, is inconsequential in this.

And normally Damian would think that the end of it, but he had, perhaps willfully, forgotten that she, too, is prone to the occasional inanity…

“But never mind all that,” she says, and Damian knows with a deep, cold dread in his stomach what is coming next before she even says, “have you been keeping up with your training? I know you have always been a serious student, but katas are important, Damian, and if that  _acrobat_  is trying to overwrite  _years_  of  _my_  training –”

“ _Mother._ ”

She does not stop.

The first sketch of is done, and Damian sets it aside. Clearly, this is going to be a long conversation, and he retrieves his paints, easel, and a canvas in preparation for it.

She has only just confirmed that yes, he still uses his sword even though he is – rather frustratingly, according to her – no longer honing his abilities by killing people with it when he begins selecting colors.

The background will have to be dark, of course; right after the mountains,  _this_ was the image that never quite dulled with time.

Greys and browns take the places on his easel for the subterranean rocks, but he will have to mix at least a couple of paints to get  _precisely_  the right shade of green…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential TWs, I guess?  
> ...  
> ...  
> ...  
> \- references to childhoods that most would consider traumatic (though that's kind of a given with DC, so)  
> \- purposeful induction of Lazarus-related trauma  
> \- horror elements to the tune of Tim seeing Lazarus-induced, rotting corpse-ghosts of his dead father
> 
> \----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> *claws out of the abyss* Contrary to popular belief, I am not, actually, dead (on the outside).
> 
> Thank you to everyone who is still sticking with this and everyone who took the time to leave kudos and comment even though it probably looked like this fic was never going to be updated! I know it's been a while since the last one, but I promise that I _am_ still writing this. My muse, however, is a fickle creature and I have the attention span of a magpie in a jewelry store.
> 
> A note on continuity: in this cannon divergence, Tim hasn’t had any encounters with Black Lanterns, so this is all new and horrifying to him.
> 
> Also, if anyone is watching the projected chapter count; yes, it keeps going up. I'm sorry that I have no control over my life.
> 
> As always, stay tuned for more!


	7. Hamartia

Consciousness returns to Robin in pieces. It filters through at first; softly, like light obscured by thick smoke, before rushing back to him all at once.

It hits him like an armored truck.

He tries to open his eyes but can only squint against the harshness of the light. His head pounds. He aches – everywhere. There is screaming in the distance. Much closer is something that sounds like fire and splintering wood.

Another breakout, he thinks, reaching for his communicator to send his check-in code to the Cave, along with the series of numbers that will tell them it’s Arkham, again, and they’ll need everyone available on alert.

But Robin’s hand finds empty air. Sluggish with confusion, he raises it to block out the light just enough to make sense of his surroundings. He sees buildings, but he can’t seem to recognize this part of Gotham. A drop of rain draws his attention, hitting his forehead with a warm, wet splat. It feels thick, somehow. Then another lands. Then – Robin’s eyes fly open, wide even against the blinding glare of the Sun as it sinks down behind distant mountains.

This isn’t Gotham. He isn’t Robin. And that isn’t rain.

Tim stares at his hand, heart pumping as his brain shifts gears to the right time and place. He has no gauntlets and no real uniform to speak of. Not even the armored vest he’d shrugged back into this morning. Just decent combat boots and a thin shirt made of torn, damp fabric. No sleeves.

Well. No sleeves except for the thick, congealing blood splatter that starts at his hands and doesn’t taper out until it reaches his elbows.

He can feel a bruise forming on his jaw and the telltale sting of a thin cut across his bicep. The wound from Noor’s dagger strike sends pain shooting up his side, but not as much as he would normally expect from that kind of injury. When he drags a clumsy hand to the wound, the fabric around it is bloody, but the cut seems shallow.

Too shallow to account for … this. Tim looks back up at his hands and fights a long-forgotten urge to retch at the sight of it. Even estimating for a larger stab wound, only some of this blood would be his. Which leads him to the obvious conclusion is that some of it is  _not_.

For an agonizing, eternal moment, Tim hopes that he’s just hallucinating. That, even if he’s about to come face to face with his dad or his mom or ... Kon, this isn’t happening. That he’s somewhere other than stuck in the middle of Nanda Parbat after a Lazarus episode, hoping he isn’t covered in someone else’s blood.

_Remember your training, Robin_.

Tim shoves himself back to the present.

Wishing won’t help.

He grits his teeth, forcing the thought out and choking his frustration back down his throat.

Facts. Facts are empirical.

Hypothesis: this is a nightmare.

The blood coating his skin is cooling more quickly than his body heat can warm it. His back hurts against the hard stone.

Conclusion: rejected. Unsupported by sensory data.

Around him, the market is wrecked. Smashed. Obliterated. On fire. Like someone hulked the fuck out in the middle of it while holding a flamethrower. He can’t see any bodies, but he’s seen enough of Gotham like this to  _know_  that this kind of destruction –

Tim lets his hands fall back to the ground. The stones are wet, almost sticky, but he can’t even make himself look.

When Ra’s had goaded him by the Pit, he had remembered flashes of what followed. Not the whole thing, of course. Most of it remained an empty, terrifyingly blank space in his mind.

But now?

Tim remembers the ladder, the quick-sharp pain of Noor’s dagger. The fall.

He remembers waking up.

The in-between is nothing. And, covered in blood, surrounded by fire, he isn’t sure he  _wants_  to know the details. It hasn’t hit him quite yet, he thinks. Or it’s shock, maybe. That seems like a sign of shock. If Bruce were here, he would level Tim with his third- strongest glare, eyes boring into his soul, and make him recite every potential symptom. Every countermeasure and unlikely reaction the body is forced through when the brain tries to protect itself from –

From whatever this is, Tim supposes.

Next to him, a burning beam crashes down from at least a story up. Sparks fly, scattering across Tim’s chest and his barely-covered skin, winking out like dying stars. But he can barely feel the burn of them, and he doesn’t really even notice until he looks down and sees small, blackened holes in the fabric of the shirt and ashes resting on his skin.

The quiet hangs thick in the air, low to the ground and slinking across the ruined market like fog, filling the synaptic clefts in his nervous system and itching like wool. Even the burning of the buildings around him fades to almost nothing, replaced by a ringing in Tim’s ears that grows until it can’t be ignored.

It sounds like whispering, and with a sense of creeping dread, Tim  _knows_  what’s coming next.

“Heh. Always so  _good_  at  _knowing_  things, aren't you, Boy Wonder?” The voice asks, building from a murmur to a quiet, mocking croon. And Tim isn’t  _always_  the beacon of omniscience some of the other heroes his age had accused him of pretending to be, but right now, he doesn’t have to pretend. Tim  _knows_  that voice like the shadows of his favorite Gotham rooftops.

He knows it like a brick to the face.

She sits next to him, sinking down to the ground like a shadow against the setting sun. Golden curls, not even tied back, frame her unmasked face. Her smile is sharp as a knife. But her image flickers like one of the JLA’s holo-coms that’s been half-smashed in a fight, and he can’t tell if she’s in purple or the green-yellow- _red_  that got her killed. This time, Tim can’t stop the sound coming from his throat. Like he can’t decide if he wants to cry or scream. Both would seem appropriate.

She lifts a hand, moving to brush Tim’s bangs from his face like this is actually happening and Tim hasn’t gone batshit insane. It isn’t happening, of course, and Tim is nearly certain that being dunked in a Lazarus Pit is an automatic disqualifier for sanity.

The hand doesn’t do much more than send a cold, tingling feeling across Tim’s hairline.

Ghosts aren’t real.

“Eggplant,” Stephanie corrects, with a sad, small smile. Nothing like that wide, split-cheeked Glasgow grin that Tim had seen carved into his father’s face that morning. “Not purple.”

An intangible hand rests on Tim’s shoulder. Something that feels like frost spider webs out from her touch. And Tim is –

Tim –

“It’s okay,” Stephanie-that-isn’t-Stephanie says, words quiet and soft like everything she wasn’t when she put on her combat boots and took to the rooftops. “It isn’t your fault.”

“Steph. Oh, god. I’m sorry, I’m –”

She shifts away, giving him her most unimpressed look.

“For this?” She throws a hand up at the carnage around them. “Don’t bother. Call it the Pit, call it instinct. Nothing you coulda’ done to stop it.” She pauses, smirking. “But for other things? Go right ahead and apologize. See if it does any good.”

“Steph –”

“Don’t  _‘Steph’_ me. Me dying? Yeah, that  _was_  your fault.”

“I didn’t mean to. I had to … it was my  _Dad_  and –”

“Which one?” The look she gives him is sharp, inviting no nonsense. No excuses. It isn’t a look some would associate with her, but even in life she’d never had much patience for Tim’s bullshit. He’ll take any expression he can get, though; the funeral had been closed-casket, and he hadn’t even seen her at the end, lying broken in the back room of Leslie’s clinic.

Steph only laughs, joylessly and cruel. “Can’t un-spill milk, Timmy. Or blood, I guess.” She glances down at the puddle Tim is lying in. “Or stop a gang war once it starts. Or rely on Batman to –”

“Steph,” he says, pleading, though he isn’t sure for what.

She stops.

Around them, the market burns. The screams grow quiet. The sun sets.

Tim wonders what it feels like to die. He can’t remember.

“Guess it didn’t matter in the end anyway. After everything,  _neither_  of us got to be Robin,” Steph murmurs, staring down at him with something small and broken behind her eyes. “He didn’t like me, you know. Pushed me out and ostracized me and was the driving force behind the last stupid decision I ever made. You think Batman giving  _you_  the cold shoulder was rough? Try dying from it.”

She blinks, thinking about that.

“Or, I guess you did,” she allows. “Different Batman, though. With you, at least it mattered to someone. Probably.”

“Steph.  _You_   _matter_. To me, even to Bruce. After you died, I couldn’t – I tried to … to –”

“To throw my DNA into the Pit with the others’? To make me a monster, _just like you?”_  Steph scoffs, looking sullenly at the middle distance between them. “Save your tears, pretty boy. It wouldn’t have worked.”

“But –”

“Ah! Don’t even.” She leans back, the idea of coming back etching something horrifying on her face. “And don’t lie to me about Bruce, either. We both know him too well for that. Honestly, I don’t even know why you want him back at all – unless you’re planning to greet him with a punch to the face?”

Tim winces. She has a point, maybe. About a man who, as much as he had taught Tim to survive, could be cold and distant. It had always been well within his capabilities to care so much for justice that he overlooked the smaller, constant harm inherent in pretending not to care. Or for overlooking things when it counted, when it could have stopped something like what happened to Steph.

Like she sees his train of thought, she rolls her eyes and cuts it off.

“You spent so much time trying to find him, Tim, but who’s going to find you? All alone, trapped in Nanda Parbat with no way out. Do they even know you’re alive? Do they even  _care?_ ”

“I –”

“Do you think Dick mourned when he couldn’t find the body? Did he even look? Do you think you got some pretty, perfect, rich-boy funeral, or did he just write you off as another loss and go back to training the  _real_  Robin?”

Tim chokes on his own inhale. He can’t breathe. He can’t –

“My money’s on option two, bird boy. Maybe he made a nice glass case for whatever spare uniform you left kicking around the Cave, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Dying in the line of duty doesn’t seem to be an automatic qualifier anymore, ya know?”

She’s right. Jason got a case; he still has it, even if he isn’t dead anymore. But Steph? Not even a shadow of a memorial. And Bruce was  _there_  when she died. For a rogue vigilante who got himself killed halfway across the planet  _after_ losing Robin because he just couldn’t cut it against Bruce’s biological son?

Yeah, no.  _Tim_  wouldn’t put that in a case, and he’s the one who ‘died’.

Maybe it’s something in his expression, or maybe Steph is picking up his thoughts again, but when he looks up at her she throws back her head and laughs. It echoes against the shells of the buildings, ricocheting off the crumbling stone.

“Now  _there’s_  that pessimistic realism I missed so much. Such a  _serious_  little Robin. Does it come with being the first one to get pants?”

Tim refuses to dignify that with a response.

Steph only shrugs. “Hmm, maybe not quite serious. Overdramatic, more like. What else do you call going on some insane, League-sponsored wild goose chase when all the signs are telling you that it’s time to retire for good?”

Tim glares. “Because  _Bruce_ –”

“No, because y _ou_ couldn’t accept that you’d outlived your use,” Steph snarls.  _There it is_  – the green clawing its way up the edges of the hallucination’s face, lining her veins. “Makes sense, I guess, even though you  _were_  always insisting that Gotham’s nightlife wasn’t your long term.  _‘I’m not going to be Batman_ , _’_  and all that shit.”

With the echo under her voice, she does a decent impression of Tim when he speaks through the synths. It’s good enough that he has to remind himself that this  _is_  all in his head.

“And it  _was_  shit. You?  _Retire?_  We saw how long  _that_ lasted, and even then it was only because of daddy dearest. But, hey, it only took me dying to get you back in the game, so I guess everything turned out  _just fine_.” Her eyes glitter green in the darkness, reflecting the light of dying fires. “You’re stuck in this till it kills you. And now?  _It can’t._  You already died a ‘hero,’ Timmers. Now you get to live long enough to –“ She laughs deep in her chest, a grating, harsh sort of sound. “Well... you know the rest.”

“Stop,” Tim forces out from between gritted teeth, “Just ... stop.”

As fast as it had come, the green flashes out of existence and Tim is left staring into Stephanie’s blue, dead eyes.

“Well, you’re the boss, bird brain,” she sighs, rocking back up to her feet with a dissatisfied look. “I spent enough time with you when I was alive to know that convincing your stubborn ass of anything important is a lost cause. But if you  _do_ make it back to Gotham and find out the hard way that no one wants  _damaged goods_  ... just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Without a second glance, she steps away, flickering in and out as she leaves. “Nice chat, bird brain. Can’t say I enjoyed it, but … I’ll still give your regards to Kon.”

She …  _what?_

“Steph! Wait!” Tim yells, voice scraping against his throat.

She doesn’t. Her voice fades with her image, seeming to shatter in a shower of green sparks. Or maybe normal sparks; another beam had fallen, sending tiny pin-prick embers across Tim’s skin.

_Fuck_.

He isn’t sure he could get up if he tried, feeling strung-out and heavy like gravity had increased while he wasn’t himself. While he –

_Oh god_. The nausea rolls over him like a wave, thick and forceful, dragging across the nerves between his brain and stomach but there’s nothing left to throw up; just acid churning in his gut, roiling like a sea in a storm.

It’s at odds with his surroundings. The screaming has stopped. The sun has sunk beneath the mountains, casting a deep, dark blue across the sky. His second conscious sunset in Nanda Parbat. Despite the fire, he can see so many stars.

His mind feels like it’s tearing itself apart, but the scene is oddly peaceful. Warm, certainly.

He wants to sink into it, to forget and melt away like a candle left unattended. It wouldn’t be the worst way to go, all things considered. Better than blowing up in a warehouse or being crushed in a cave.

Or disappearing in time.

At least they already think he’s dead. No one will go crazy trying to confirm or deny –

“He’s over here!” Someone shouts in the distance. It breaks the quiet, fracturing it like a glass crushed under foot, dripping with wine. Distant, but familiar.

Pru, he thinks. It’s half-decent, as far as a thought before blacking out. Maybe he should start keeping a list …

**…**  

The next time he’s aware of anything besides the deep, encompassing darkness of unconsciousness, it’s shouting. Not too odd, considering his line of work. The sound echoes all around him, loud and aggravating as the sluggish neurons in his brain start firing overtime trying to compensate.

Whatever he’s been left on is soft – softer than the flagstones, at least. Much drier, too.

Tim opens his eyes and sees nothing green; just warm, sandstone walls and the deep, gilded blue of cloth hanging from the ceiling, and Pru and Noor looking like they’re about to kill each other five feet away from the padded bench someone laid him on.

Wait. What?

It takes him a moment to understand what’s being said. Noor speaks through gritted teeth, and he can barely hear past the rasp of it. Pru gets even more incomprehensible when she’s angry, and he has a vague hope that she hasn’t gotten her hand on a gun quite yet. Whatever happened to the knife he snatched off her is a mystery, since it doesn’t seem to be in its holster.

“That doesn’t fucking justify it!” Pru is yelling, once sounds finally start resolving into words. Her hand is grasping the front of Noor’s uniform so tightly she’s nearly tearing it.

Noor takes the outburst calmly, smirking in a way that’s much subtler than what Tim quickly learned to classify as her normal, aggressive smiles. It only makes Pru even angrier.

“And I didn’t bloody authorize  _this_!” She yanks Noor forward, jolting her so close that they’re only inches from one another. Close enough to bite, were Pru so inclined.

She’s never been a biter, though.

“Calm yourself,  _Prudence_ ,” Noor demurs. Or, at least as close to demurring as Tim suspects she’s capable of getting. “He is  _fine_. Being one of the Chosen accelerates his healing, does it not?”

Pru snarls, teeth on full display and rage etched into the tense lines of her muscles. Her eyes shine in the room’s lantern light, and there is a single, deeply disconcerting moment where Tim suspects she’s close to tears.

“Only while he’s trying to  _kill_   _us_ ,” she spits, hissing through clenched teeth. “And not efficiently enough to  _fix a stab wound_  – how the bloody hell did you even get it  _through_  his armor anyway?”

Noor snorts incredulously at that, but Pru ignores her and steams straight ahead.

“What were you  _thinking?_ What if you knocked him off the ladder and he hadn’t gone all green and mean on us? Or what if something had happened  _after_  he came out of it?”

“We put him back in,” Noor says, calm as anything, letting herself be jostled by Pru’s death grip. In a flash, Pru’s pulling back her fist, and Tim knows from experience that if Noor doesn’t duck, she might lose the structural integrity in one of her cheekbones.

Pru plays for keeps, after all.

But she doesn’t get that far.

Right as she pulls back, the doors slam open. It shifts the air, sending the incense Tim hadn’t realized was slinking around the floor in wide, smoky billows.

Everything freezes. Pru’s fist stops mid-swing, her muscles working double time to pull back from the hit. Noor stops too, her eyes hard and her smirk stiff on her face as she seems to realize she was seconds away from losing part of it.

“Prudence,” Ra’s says from the doorway. Quiet, ominous, nothing more than a cloaked silhouette against the night, framed in fire. For a moment, he looks almost like the demon his followers claim him he is.

Or maybe Tim hit his head harder than he thought.

Pru doesn’t say anything, but she does drop Noor and shove her away so quickly that the other woman nearly stumbles to stay upright. Ra’s steps forward, scowling. The incense clings to him, rising up to grip at his robes and falling away in translucent curls. The fires flicker, guttering in their lanterns as the doors swing closed behind him, seemingly of their own initiative. He has no guards.

“Leave us,” he says, barely more than a whisper.

“But she–”

Ra’s’ sharp look is command enough. “Your work has allowed you certain privileges, Prudence, but disobedience is not one of them. I will not ask again.”

Her expression goes blank, but beneath it lies an undercurrent of dread that Tim has never seen. He wouldn’t blame her, either; Ra’s is not a man known for mercy.

Tim pushes himself upward, trying to shift into something of a ‘ready stance’, even though the last thing he wants right now is to get himself killed ( _again_ ) trying and failing to avenge her.

But Pru doesn’t fight the order. Instead, she spares Tim a final, pained glance and melts into the shadows with a seamlessness born of practice.

Noor receives no such leniency. Under Ra’s unyielding stare, she sinks to her knees before him, her spine curving into a low, tense bow.

Ra’s is too quiet. Tim doesn’t know  _what_  to expect.

“You are intelligent,” Ra’s says, coming to stand before Noor, “and ambitious, more so than many of your contemporaries.”

Where it is hidden from Ra’s’ view, a slight tremor runs through Noor’s left hand. She clenches it to stop the shaking.

“In your time training with her, my daughter spoke highly of you. This is a rarer honor than most could ever hope to achieve.” Ra’s’ hand comes to rest at his hip, fingers curling lightly against the grip of his sword.

Tim tenses where he’s sitting. Already, his brain is going into crisis mode at the threat of an execution, even if he wouldn’t exactly call Noor  _blameless_  in the day’s catastrophe. He tries to get his legs under him, wondering if he has enough left in him to make it across the room before the inevitable.

Even as she subdues her shaking, Noor’s neck is bared, her hair swept away from her skin in a waterfall of dark waves. For a cleaner cut, presumably.

“However,” Ra’s pauses, letting the word hang in the air like Damocles’ sword, “while you were diligent in the execution of your duty, your actions remained impulsive, to say the least. In direct violation of your orders, your actions led to widespread, unsanctioned collateral damage. This level of incompetence is as inexcusable as it is shameful, and for what you have wrought, you have forfeit your life.”

“It is yours, Master,” Noor intones, rote.

Tim senses more than sees flashes of – something. Screaming. Fire. A blade slipping from his hand slick with –

No.

He stands, but his legs give out beneath him. His side catches on the bench, the impact jarring the stab wound. Pain lances across his ribs and Tim sucks in a sharp, shallow breath.

Before Ra’s, Noor remains kneeling, waiting. Tim wonders how many others she has heard speak those words before losing their lives on the edge of that blade. He wonders if she says them now out of fear or devotion. Both, perhaps.

The moment stretches, trembling like a string pulled taut, fraying beneath the weight of Ra’s deliberation. Tim leans forward on his hand, leveraging himself on the bench to push himself to his feet once more. The rug seems thick, though he can’t feel it through the boots, and it’ll provide traction, if he needs it. If he can make himself move -

Something changes in Ra’s’ stance. “No, it is not.”

Noor nearly looks up but stops herself, muscles locking down on her surprise. Or her fear, maybe. Unpredictability can be worse than certainty, sometimes.

But sometimes it can be better.

“Your life is  _his_. And as the instrument of your actions, he will determine how you must pay for them.” With that, Ra’s looks to where Tim is mustering the strength to intercede.

For his part, Tim nearly falls again from the shock of it. Noor, though, may as well have been a statue. She wasn’t expecting this. Neither of them –

Ra’s is not generous. He knows Tim wouldn’t order someone’s death. It’s a test.

It has to be.

Still a bit delirious, Tim tells Ra’s as much.

Ra’s has the audacity to laugh

“Perhaps, Detective.” His hand has not left his sword.

Noor doesn’t look like she’s breathing.

“Yet it remains your decision–”

“No.” He says it quickly; too quickly, if Ra’s raised eyebrow is any indication.

“You will have to be more specific, Timothy. If you wish to reject the responsibility for this one’s failure, simply say the words so I may end her. There is no need to drag this out.” The way he says it is perfunctory, nearly curt. As if none of this even  _matters_.

To him, it probably doesn’t.

“No, don’t kill her.” Tim tries again, willing his voice not to shake. “No more of … this.”

Killing. Death. Blood coating his hands, spilling onto the ground, soaking in.

And Tim can’t  _hear_  his own heart beating, but he can definitely feel the deep, chest-wide convulsions, the come-down from his adrenaline rush.

More than a moment passes before the rest of the world comes back to him.

“Very well.” Ra’s says, at length, loosening his grip on the sword. He looks back down at Noor.

No words pass between them, but she seems to get whatever he’s telegraphing. She shuffles back a step or two out of range. Slowly, at first, followed by a dart into shadows so quick that he almost misses it. And Tim – it’s hard for him to see the subdued, shell-shocked way Noor had knelt before her ‘Master’ and think of her as the same woman who seemed to make a game of casually threatening him.

It’s strange, and it sets something uncomfortable itching under Tim’s skin. But this entire situation is weird already weird, even for Ra’s.

He wonders if this was staged. Or if he’s been drugged. Or if it’s both.

With what little adrenaline Tim has left to him, he forces himself to ignore the way his side screams at him. And it  _does_  scream at him, but if he wasn’t capable of dragging his ass halfway across  _Gotham_  because of something as relatively inconsequential as a shank wound? He’s pretty sure that would put him beneath most of the city’s  _non-combatants_  in levels of endurance.

Pulling himself back up onto the bench is nothing, comparatively. He’s had much worse. Escaping the desert while carrying Pru  _and_ with a freshly missing spleen, for instance.

Unlike the continuous re-opening of  _that_  particular wound before Ra’s people stitched him up, Noor’s little present doesn’t seem to have torn itself back open during his near-fall. It’s stopped bleeding, though Tim has no idea when.

As far as his shirt is concerned, it’s too little too late. The thing is torn and soaked, and even if someone had done their level best to clean the blood from his arms, it doesn’t change the fact that Tim looks about as ragged as he feels.

The last traces of lingering brown and black blood had burrowed beneath Tim’s fingernails, and he has to resist the urge to claw at them to get it out.

With Noor gone, Ra’s is free to move closer. It’s a liberty he takes - to an extent. As Tim struggles to re-seat himself, Ra’s takes a few, careful steps towards him until he stands before Tim, watching his progress with a close, scrutinizing eye. Like Tim is a bug, trapped behind glass.

Once he’s finally far enough back on the seat where he  _probably_  won’t fall off again, Tim pulls his legs closer to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and bracing himself against whatever onslaught is coming next. The glare he levels at Ra’s is sullen, silently daring him to comment on the situation.

Ra’s doesn’t take the bait.

Instead, with a snap of his fingers, two ninja materialize with a chair. It’s dark wood, with gold inlaid in the shape of small, delicate-looking flowers embellishing its gently sloping lines and is probably in a price range that might make even Bruce think twice about dropping that kind of money. The ninja disappear just as quickly, vanishing into the shadows. How much would he have to annoy Ra’s to get him to tell Tim how that works?

Ra’s sinks down, sitting on the chair like it’s his throne, crossing one leg over the other. The motion sends his robes cascading around him like an over-ambitious artist’s fabric study. Their gold trim glints subtly in the firelight.

“How are you feeling, Timothy?” He asks. His expression is mild.

It reminds Tim uncomfortably of the therapy sessions Dick had tried to make him go to back when he first thought Tim was crazy. It’s an unnerving possibility that, even with the flash drive Tim had gotten to him via Tam, Dick might  _still_  think that; his poor, insane,  _dead_  ‘little brother.’ Or whatever the fuck Dick started referring to him as after their fight on the cliff just past Gotham’s city limits.

Tim doesn’t want to know. But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t particularly care.

“I’m fucking fantastic,” Tim grinds out, almost sneering. “How are you?”

Ra’s  _has_ to know that isn’t really a question, but his lips curl into a smile halfway between condescending and amused, anyway.

“I am well, Detective. Though it should come as no surprise that I doubt the veracity of your claim.”

Tim snorts. “With observations like  _that_ , maybe you should start calling  _yourself_  ‘Detective’ for a change, Ra’s. Just to see how much you can inflate your ego before it bursts.”

“I see your sense of humor has not been damaged by your recent … lapse,” Ra’s tone goes flat, “nor has it improved.”

“Maybe you just have no taste,” Tim snarks back, “I’m  _hilarious_.”

“Or perhaps you are simply delusional. Especially if you still believe that, after today’s incident, it is in  _anyone’s_ best interest for you to leave Nanda Parbat.”

Go directly to bad discussion topic. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Tim has to fight the urge to try and sink into the wall at his back.

It isn’t that it’s the kind of conversational shift he  _doesn’t_  expect from Ra’s, so much as it’s the speed of the change that winds him.

He raises an eyebrow, incredulous, but Ra’s expression is the kind of serious that usually means ‘danger: monologue incoming.’

“Can you not?” Tim asks. He isn’t in the mood, really, and Ra’s’ monologues trend towards the hilariously overwrought end of the villain spectrum, but right now Tim just -

What he doesn’t expect is for Ra’s to stand from the chair, robes unfurling around him like somebody filmed this in slow motion. The rant never comes. He just stands there, appraising, his mouth curved into a frown.

“Can you stand?” He asks, at length.

Tim is relatively sure that saying ‘no’ will mean someone is going to carry him.

“Sure,” Tim bites out, “why the fuck not.” He shifts forward, uncurling his legs from his chest and putting his weight on his arms. One foot touches the ground, then the other. The whole thing is made more uncomfortable by Ra’s careful scrutiny, but Tim manages to push himself up and find his center of balance.

For about five seconds.

It turns out that ‘why the fuck not’ is because his body is a serious wreck at the moment and Tim is too weak to fight through the pain of it. Bruce would fire him on the spot, he’s sure.

Right as his legs give out, Ra’s makes a vague signal in the direction of the room’s shadowed corners. From seemingly nowhere, a blur of worn fabric and baldness darts next to him, catching the crook of his arm on her shoulder and holding him up.

“Hey,” Pru says, more quietly than he normally expects from her. Ra’s doesn’t comment, seeming to have overlooked her earlier transgression. Tim hopes she isn’t going to be punished later, but mostly he’s just really, really glad to see her.

If Ra’s weren’t staring right at him, Tim would let his head slump against her cheek, too exhausted to really keep it up. But, no. He’s already having trouble standing on his own, and adding another sign of weakness won’t help here.

Pru just purses her lips and moves her head in an incremental sort of way that Tim translates as a nod.

From around the same area Pru came from, several ninja begin to gather, darkening a corner of the room with their muted uniforms. At Ra’s signal, they snap into formation; making sure Tim doesn’t try to make a run for it, presumably – as if he even could right now – or looking out for threats to their leader, maybe. Not that much could get the jump on Ra’s  _and_ come out on top.

Tim looks up at him from where he’s braced against Pru. “Tired of monologing already, Ra’s? I expected better, honestly, but maybe you’re just getting old.”

Ra’s scoffs. “There is a time to speak and a time to act. Your mentor understood this. His students on the other hand .…” his expression is decidedly unimpressed, as if Tim cares about his approval. “We have already tried speaking, Timothy, and there was little to be gained from it. Thus, I find myself forced to utilize a secondary recourse: action. Specifically, a demonstration of your own.”

“I’m not doing anything, Ra’s.” Tim grimaces, leaning imperceptibly further into Pru. Her grip tightens, though not so much to be obvious.

“ _Clearly_. Yet, it is not actions that you might yet take that must be addressed so much as the actions you have already taken.”

Two ninja rush to pull the door open for Ra’s, standing still enough that they almost blend in with the room’s furniture. Ra’s pauses there, in the doorway, looking dramatically over his shoulder at Tim. “And you are wounded, besides. Where we are going is an inevitability, not an option.”

Ra’s walks through, and the ninja move close enough to force Tim and Pru follow at a slow walk. She looks uneasy to Tim, but it isn’t the time or place to ask why. Beyond the room is –

Tim’s eyes widen. Blood. Fire. Screaming.

– nothing, at first. None of that. Tim shakes his head to clear the flashes.

And then he sees it.

After Pru found him, he hadn’t been moved far. They’re still by the wall closest to the pass, notable as the only one without mountains rising up beyond it.

The buildings are almost recognizable.

Almost.

Broken, scorching husks rise up around them. Bolts of once-colorful cloth hang in dull tatters. The market’s wares look as if they had been crushed underfoot; tools and small trinkets lie broken and useless against the flagstones, once-vibrant fruit is scattered and ruptured, juices blending with the –

_Stay calm_ , Tim reminds himself.  _The easiest way to lose control of a situation is to panic. And if you lose control, they win every time._

Tim tenses. Steels himself.

Visually, there isn’t a lot of difference between the trampled pulp of some of that fruit and the dull, darkening color of the drying blood just beneath the wall he fell from. Something about the amount and the spread of the blood splatter sets Tim on edge, echoing through his senses like the vertigo he hasn’t felt since his first few weeks in the cape.

It’s a bit ridiculous; this isn’t even the most blood Tim’s seen in a single place at one time – Professor Pyg  _does_  operate in Gotham, after all.

But it’s still a lot.

In one corner of the market, a few people seem to be at work picking through the debris and keeping the remains of the fire contained. But they’ve barely made a dent in the wreckage, and the smoke curling up and away from the burnt-out buildings chokes the air with the promise of further destruction.

As if on cue, one of the nearby roofs falls in on itself, the omnipresent sound of creaking growing into a resounding crash. Clouds of displaced ash flume out from the newly gutted building to settle on the surrounding ruins.

Undaunted, Ra’s walks through the center of the once-market as the unspoken threat of ninja violence forces Tim and Pru to keep pace. No one says anything. Not Ra’s, not the contingent of guards, not even the people setting about clearing the rubble, though their glares are steely and leveled at Tim when he passes them.

The implication is clear, and Tim has never been one for self-delusion when it comes to his capabilities. Or his shortcomings. The ruined district lies around him, hulking and hollow, testament to what has happened to him and what he has caused. What he might cause again, and on a larger scale.

The thought is terrifying, made even more so with the reminder – thank you, Noor – that if he tries to take himself out of the picture, Ra’s is just going to drag him back out of the Pit, kicking and screaming. And chip away at his sanity in the process, probably.

Or – and Tim tries not to give in to his own weakness by latching onto this as a possibility– maybe Ra’s burnt out part of his own city while Tim was passed out. Just to fuck with him.

Tim wouldn’t call that the  _least_  likely option; this  _is_  Ra’s, after all. But, given the care he seemed to have put into making sure Nanda Parbat conformed to his exacting standards in the first place, Tim has his doubts. And it isn’t like he can just  _ask_  him what happened either. At least, not if he wants an answer that isn’t perfectly calibrated to fuck with his head.

Tim was trained by the world’s greatest detective. He can draw his own conclusions.

When they finally stop, it’s at a low, rectangular building with lattices in place of windows. It reminds him uncomfortably of looking into Blackgate from the outside, even though these are aesthetically distinct and appear easily breakable.

Still, he has to suppress a small shudder as they pass through the door and then a cough at the onslaught of incense just past it.

On each windowsill, small burning bowls release the thick scent of cloves into the air, layered over something more unidentifiable. It’s strong enough that Tim can barely smell the blood and ruin of the city outside. Or, for that matter, the blood and ruin  _inside_.

Shaking off a nascent cough, Tim looks around to distract himself. At this point, he can’t really call his reaction  _surprise_  when the room turns out to be a strange blend of Ra’s more traditional architectural preferences and modern, chrome equipment. The stylistic juxtaposition should be jarring, like if someone had set up a high-end triage center in the middle of the Alhambra.

But it works, somehow. Fluorescent light peeks out from behind an ornately latticed ceiling. The walls are covered in bas-relief scripture curving delicately around the mounted medical equipment. It looks more futuristic than anything Tim’s seen off of S.T.A.R. Labs’ R&D testing floor. The transition is seamless, even if it looks completely ridiculous. It’s a bit like Ra’s, Tim thinks, whenever he dons his oversized green cloak over a Western-style business suit: strange and kind of hilarious, but also liable to kill you if you say as much.

Well, not quite. It’s medical equipment and, unlike some of the similarly-equipped torture rooms Tim has seen in League bases, it probably isn’t meant to kill the patients scattered around the room. There are only a few of them, he notes, but the ones closer to the back seem to be in various stages of  _definitely not okay_.

Just a few steps into the room, Ra’s comes to a halt before a group of lightly armored people; guards, Tim is assuming. The ninja behind Tim and Pru keep moving, forcing them forward until they have to stop just short of running straight into Ra’s. Pru shoots them a glare for their trouble, and one of the ninja on the end shuffles a bit nervously at the heat behind it. Annoyed or nervous, the one next to her jabs her in the ribs with an elbow, jolting her back into formation.

Mollified, Pru looks away, returning her – and Tim’s – attention back to the room before them.

The group Ra’s had stopped at seem only lightly injured, and Ra’s waves them out the door without a word. The looks they give Tim as they scramble away are cautious, tinged with something that might be fear or might be something else entirely; it’s hard to tell with their half-face masks.

With their departure, the average injury level of the room skyrockets. Even from a distance, Tim can tell it’s bad. Like, Gotham General after a Two-Face attack bad, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Ra’s stands to the side, but he gestures for Tim to walk forward. His other arm bars Pru’s shoulders, stopping her short. She lets Tim go with a huff but otherwise doesn’t fight it.

He’s on his own for this one.

“What are you waiting for, Timothy?” Ra’s asks, keeping his voice free of inflection. “You have ever been more thoughtful in your actions than the Detective’s other protégées – a trait I admire, surely – but you cannot avoid this forever. You will, eventually, have to face the consequences.”

That word again.  _Consequences._  Bruce had always been very clear what the consequences would be for people who did what Tim had done. And Jason’s never talked to him about his time in Arkham, but Tim has a good enough idea. He’d either be dead within the week or end up turning into something that would make him  _glad_  Bruce wouldn’t be there to see it.

Tim grits his teeth, willing himself to ignore the Ra’s needling; losing his cool here won’t help.

He takes a tentative step forward, then another, and finds it easier to walk unaided. Not quite  _easy_ , but his post-Lazarus recovery rate seems decent.

Tim isn’t sure that that’s a good thing.

Clearing his mind, he picks his way through the open floor of the facility, stopping first at a gurney that looks like it holds more bandages than person.

“Burns,” Ra’s comments from somewhere behind him, “sustained while trying to evacuate other civilians from a partially immolated building. Although,  _how_  you managed to set the eastern marketplace on fire remains a matter of investigation.”

Ra’s pauses, giving Tim a look that doesn’t quite translate through Tim’s understanding of Ra’s facial expressions. He makes a mental note to figure out its meaning and add it to his running list.

“Yet,” Ra’s continues, his expression shifting back to something more identifiably smug, “burns are easily treated by both our medical advances and the skill of our healers. However, the time spent recovering will be extensive. He will be here for months as his body struggles to replace the skin damaged in the fire. Grafts may be necessary, and the functionality of his muscles may never quite return to what it was.”

Tim stares on, imagining the ruin of flesh that the bandages cover. Even assuming Ra’s isn’t up-selling Nanda Parbat’s medical capabilities, there isn’t any easy way back from that. But he might also be overstating the damage. With all those bandages, it’s hard to tell how much of the man on the cot is burns and how much of him is smoke and mirrors.

Ra’s, unfortunately for Tim, is still talking. “His wife is a guard, and she can make sure their children do not stray in his absence. And, of course, I would not see any of my subjects go hungry. I, unlike the leaders of  _some_ sovereign states, recognize the limitations of my people.”

Tim turns away sharply, walking past the bandaged man to the next bed. He doesn’t want to hear this, not from Ra’s, not now. You can’t go around pretending you care about the social safety net when your idea of environmentalism is killing off nine tenths of the Earth’s population.

The next patients are close together, their hospital beds pushed almost up against one another. There is only a small gap between them, but the patients’ hands are clasped across it. As Tim approaches, the first woman tries to muffle her crying – weeping, really – but the way she looks at the second woman remains desperate. Scared, almost. Her skin is a patchwork of mottled bruises, dark against the stark white of the bandages wrapped where her arm – the one not holding on to the other woman’s hand – just … ends.

A guard blocks his path, keeping Tim from getting too close. Instead, Ra’s steps forward, to where the healers are removing wide, bloodied swaths of bandages from the second woman’s abdomen, cutting through the strips to avoid jostling her too much. He inspects their work, frowning in places and muttering. Criticism or advice, it’s too quiet for Tim to hear.

Beneath the bandages, the wound is extensive. It runs long and deep, and her skin looks freshly stitched. She isn’t a large woman; a wound like that would have damn near eviscerated her.

And if Ra’s is telling the truth,  _Tim_  is responsible.

He’s going to be sick.

Growing up and learning to fight in Gotham has exposed him to much worse; this is nothing compared to watching Killer Croc rip people in half or seeing a street full of civilians melted down into sizzling blood and viscera by Joker’s acid.

But there is a line between putting the kind of person who does this stuff behind bars and  _being_ the kind of person who Bruce would –

Green flickers in his periphery.

_Calm_ , Tim reminds himself. He has to stay calm.

Ra’s – thankfully, for once- decides in that moment that he isn’t done talking, giving Tim something else to focus on. “It is fortunate that she was not standing closer to you when you woke, and that your second blow was… interrupted,” Ra’s says, halting Tim’s thought process. He waves a hand in the direction of the first woman’s missing arm. Tim blanches.

“The damage is not nearly as extensive as it could have been, and we were able to save her organs. You may be interested to know that she nearly lost some of them in your attack, yet…” Ra’s glances up at him over the women.

Neither they nor the healers present seem to speak English, or Tim imagines they might have something to say about the callousness of his words. Instead, they are only eyeing Tim with suspicion and fear.

Not that he doesn’t deserve it.

“What?” Tim asks, snapping at Ra’s extended silence.

“Yet, our healers are some of the most competent in the world. We were able to save her spleen, in the end. Though, the alternative would have provided irony of quite a  _delicious_  nature.”

“ _Fuck. You._ ” Tim hisses, too low for anyone but Pru or Ra’s to hear. Ra’s smirks.  _Bastard_.

“This is neither the time nor place, Detective, though I will keep that in mind.” And just like that, Tim’s anger turns to mortification. Every. Single.  _Time_  –

“However,” Ra’s interrupts, apparently having gotten whatever he wanted out of  _that_  exchange, “for now, I am content to inform you that the relatively low severity of your actions consequences’ can be attributed to Nanda Parbat’s level of preparation for  _exactly_  this sort of unexpected incident.”

Tim is still fighting an unfortunate blush, but, as always, Ra’s demands his full attention.

“Imagine if, in your previous state, you had been released in downtown Gotham…” Ra’s says, voice dropped to a solemnity Tim knows he doesn’t mean, “you would be almost indistinguishable from one of the lunatics your mentor regularly locked away in Arkham. Do you think your dear Richard would differentiate, Timothy? I, for one, suspect he would not.”

He has to fight against backing away at the thought. It’s one thing for Dick to run him out of Gotham and give his mantle to Bruce’s  _real_ son – Tim  _gets_  that the kid needs it, even if it makes something small and fragile inside him shatter into sharp, jagged shards.

But if he went back, if he were locked up like criminal, like a  _murderer?_  Dick already tried to put him in therapy; Tim doesn’t know  _what_  he would do if he had to face down Dick from the other side of one of Arkham’s padded cells.

As much as Bruce did “lock away” his rogues, somewhere beneath the cape and the fear tactics, he  _had_  genuinely wanted to help them. Tim’s always suspected that he did it to prove that there was hope for him, too, somehow.

But Arkham has always had a tendency to exacerbate psychological problems more than it addresses them. Every time someone goes to Arkham for therapy, they seem to come back a little crazier. The current psychiatrists are out of options, and medical schools won’t even  _think_ about sending them new residents after what happened to Dr. Quinzel.

The longer Tim’s spent out of the R, the more he’s had time to think that maybe Bruce was wrong. Maybe Jason’s only the exception to the rule, and there just  _is_  no getting better for people like the Joker, or Penguin, or the Riddler.

Maybe there really is no going back.

But there are more pressing matters. Ra’s, for one, with his smug,  _infuriating_  face -

“ _What_  do you  _want_  from me?” Tim asks, quiet and harsh. “What do you even  _get_ out of–”

“Not yet,” Ra’s, says, cutting him off, “there is one more you need to see.”

Ra’s departs without another word, and the ninja force Tim to follow. Pru takes her spot at his side once more, issuing a glared threat at anyone who might even think about coming close.

They’re lead first to a small, innocuous door tucked into the corner of the room, kept out of view by a curtain. There’s a  _Wizard of Oz_ joke there, but Tim hasn’t recovered quite enough of his brain capacity to make it.

The door opens easily, and with no small amount of assistance from Pru, Tim allows himself to be led down a set of long, winding stairs. Unlike the bright fluorescence of the first room, the stairwell is lit entirely by the muted, recessed lighting of Ra’s’ main complex.

It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, but it feels like hours pass before the stairs end in a dim, white room apportioned into several sub-sections by opaque glass. Ra’s presses a button on the wall, and one of them fades to translucent, revealing a small operating theater.

The room is filled with a hushed sort of quiet of a hospital at night, and the theater is empty, except for a small figure on the central table and several machines. Tim’s heart nearly jumps into his throat at the thought that Ra’s is about to show him a  _dead child_ , before he registers the slow, steady beeping of the heart rate monitor.

“Sit down,” Ra’s says, motioning to the theater across from where the kid is lying supine; alive but unmoving. For lack of any better options, Tim goes, lifting himself to sit on a second operating table in lieu of a chair. The ninjas fan out around the room, giving them the illusion of privacy.

In his periphery, Ra’s is moving around, but at this point Tim honestly doesn’t care enough to do anything about it. Instead, he watches Pru where she leans against the wall, one foot braced against it and arms crossed in agitation. Eventually she reaches into whatever pocket dimension she uses instead of a utility belt and pulls out what looks like a small torsion wrench. And promptly begins cleaning her nails with it.

Seriously, he has no idea where she hides all this stuff. It  _has_  to be a pocket dimension.

Tim raises an eyebrow, and when Pru glances over and catches him looking, she sticks out her tongue at him. It’s kind of petulant and definitely ridiculous, but it’s  _Tim’s_  kind of petulant and ridiculous and he has to hide a quiet laugh behind his hand. Part of him wants to be mad at Pru for making him smile in such a shit situation, but he reminds himself that it  _has_ always been a talent of hers.

He tries not to think about who else might have been able to do that once.

It’s Ra’s moving to stand in front of Tim that snaps him out of it and redirects his attention. Tim returns to frowning as Ra’s places antiseptic, gauze, and a small suturing kit next to where he sits on the table. He eyes Tim’s ruined shirt the same way most of Gotham’s upper class look at crime reports from the Narrows: with disgust, but also with the knowledge that they would never be bothered to do anything about it.

Tim stares back, as blankly as he can manage, until Ra’s sighs in exasperation and picks up a small scalpel from a nearby table.

“I cannot do anything about your wound  _through_  your shirt, Timothy. Remove it, or I will remove it for you.”

“How about we do neither of those?” Tim asks, leaning back and away from Ra’s.

“You are aware that it is  _nothing_ I have not seen before? Recently, even, if we consider your emergence from the Lazarus Pit.”

And Tim – no. Just, no. He neither needed nor wanted to think about that, thank you very much. And that sentiment probably bleeds into his expression, even as he reaches to pull off the shirt. It’s a small miracle that the thin, bloodied fabric doesn’t tear further beneath the tension in his fingers, but it falls in a heap where Tim drops it, more or less intact.

Ra’s better have some other clothes around here, because he sure as fuck isn’t walking back to his room half naked.

“ _Happy?_ ” Tim asks, his voice practically dripping with sarcasm.

“More so than I imagine you are about to be.” With a pair of forceps, Ra’s holds up a long strand of thread and the small, curved suturing needle attached to it. Very valiantly, Tim does  _not_  smack it away. “The Pit’s influence may have aided your healing – a fascinating permutation of your resurrection, I admit – yet it was not  _quite_  enough to compensate for a wound as deep as this. It  _will_  need stitches. Thankfully, you are in the care of one  _eminently_  qualified to administer them.”

Look, Tim is fine with stitches. Send him Alfred after a patrol gone wrong and he won’t even think of complaining. But being stitched back together by  _Ra’s al Ghul?_  Tim takes back everything he ever said about wanting Bart’s accelerated cell regeneration. Just let him die; a partial healing factor isn’t worth  _this_.

He forces himself to suppress the thought.

“Touch me with that and you lose the hand,” Tim says, instead, as nonchalantly as possible.

“Posturing will accomplish little,” Ra’s retorts, though he sounds far more amused than Tim feels is contextually appropriate. “You may be  _capable_  of stitching your own wounds, Timothy, however that does not make it  _wise_  decision.”

“What are you going to do if I try?” Tim asks, scoffing. “Throw me back in the Lazarus Pit?”

Ra’s raises an eyebrow.

Well, fair enough.

“Ok, whatever. Then am I just supposed to assume that, of all people,  _you_  know how to do stitches? Don’t you just go back in the Pit when you need it?”

Ra’s replaces the needle, trading it for antiseptic, but he doesn’t otherwise comment. Tim doesn’t stop him; he’d rather suffer potentially inexperienced stitches than potential zombification, though that isn’t saying much.

Ra’s, at the very least, is relatively careful with what’s left of Noor’s stab wound. The antiseptic stings, but Tim calls it a draw because there isn’t much either of them could do about that.

But when Tim sees Ra’s reach for a syringe, he catches his hand before he can pick it up. Ra’s lets him.

“It is merely anesthetic, Timothy,” Ra’s says, “Even  _you_  must admit that, had I wished to introduce a malignant element to your bloodstream, I have had ample opportunity to do so already. Thus, in this, I have no ulterior motives.”

To Tim, that sounds  _exactly_  like something someone with ulterior motives would say.

“I’ll go without.” Tim doesn’t release Ra’s’ hand until he backs up a step and moves away from the needle. It probably  _is_  just anesthetic, but. This is also  _Ra’s_ he’s dealing with.

“Very well,” Ra’s hums, going for the needle and the forceps again. The first pass of the needle makes Tim suck in a sharp breath, but he’s been doing this for so long that the rest of the punctures don’t register as much more than a series of dull, pinching sensations. The thread pulling through his skin is a little worse, but Tim grits his teeth and does his level best to ignore it.

He watches Ra’s closely as he works. The needle curves around the ragged edges of the wound and deft fingers tie off each ligature, knotting the thread securely enough to hold. It isn’t until the wound is fully closed and Ra’s is covering the area in gauze that Tim thinks of a coherent response to… all that.

_There’s a lot to unpack here_ would be the English lit class version of Tim’s current mental state, so said coherent response manifests itself in a very eloquent, “What.”

Ra’s just rolls with it. Give him an inch...

“You are quick to judge for one who prides himself on thorough analysis, Detective,” Ra’s  _preens_ , “or have you forgotten that I have had hundreds of years to accumulate a vast repository of knowledge in many fields? Medicine is merely one of them, though it was, admittedly, the first.”

Ra’s says  _medicine_  like the other side of that coin was never an interest in viral pathology that led to him stealing a strain of Ebola Gulf A from the Order of St. Dumas.

Tim hums flatly. “Yeah, thanks for reminding me that  _you_  were responsible for nearly killing me with a virus that made me bleed out of my eyes.  _Again_. Really helping on the  _trust_  front.”

“When one has a deep, comprehensive understanding of germ theory, one feels inclined to use it,” Ra’s answers, his tone grating in how mild it is. “Besides, I do not require your trust, Detective, I am not  _naïve_. I merely request that you acknowledge I am  _right_.”

“About  _what?_  If you’re still trying to sell me on your utilitarian eco-terrorism bullshit, you can save us both some time and skip the spiel.”

“Another time, perhaps, when you are in better form for our verbal sparring. To engage you now would be unfair, cognitively impaired as you are at the moment.”

_Rude._

“And, as pivotal as the fate of the planet is, we are faced with a more immediate issue.” Ra’s pauses like he’s waiting for Tim to comment. Tim does no such thing. Instead, he stares resolutely at the wall like the dark glass is a complicated piece of code he’s intent on cracking.

Eventually Ra’s must get tired of waiting for anything resembling contribution from Tim.

“The damage caused by your actions was remarkably limited, considering, but this incident  _does_ raise… let us call them  _concerns_. When we last sparred, I told you that you lacked control. Now, I see that was an understatement. Your condition is deteriorating rapidly, Timothy, and there is little doubt that this will happen again. The next time you lose control, it will be worse. You will not only hurt people, you will kill them. None of this is a matter of ‘if,’ but of ‘when.’”

“I don’t–” Tim starts.

“No.” Ra’s cuts him off, tone hard and leaving no room for negotiation. “Do not play the fool, Timothy. It does not suit you. You know what is happening; you know I speak the truth.”

Tim slumps lower on the operation table, spine suddenly reluctant to support his weight. In the corner of his field of vision, Pru inches closer, choosing a wall with a better vantage point from which to intervene, if necessary.

“I will not allow you to die, Timothy, but if you leave without taking any countermeasures first,  _others_   _certainly_   _will_. By your hand, no less. Recall the death and heartbreak left in the wake of Jason Todd’s resurrection; it will happen all over again if you do nothing to prevent it.”

As much as it pains Tim to admit it, he isn’t wrong.

With the Lazarus Pit, Ra’s is functionally immortal. Normal human lifespans are as breaths to him: useful, but passing easily and often without notice. He doesn’t care about the human-interest angle; he never has and never will. But he knows that  _Tim_  does. He knows that when the heir to the Drake fortune put his money and time towards charities in Gotham, it was as much to fix the damage Robin’s vigilantism caused as it was to address the city’s more systemic issues.

Today’s little tour was for Tim’s benefit, clearly; meant to cause him guilt or to goad him into accepting Ra’s’ offer out of fear of causing further harm.

If this were one of Batman’s other rogues, that knowledge would be enough to end this. Even with the Joker, Tim usually has a basic sense of what any given rogue is angling for. He recognizes their patterns, learns their plans, and he dismantles their operations before they’re even fully realized.

Not so much with Ra’s. His plans are always complex and multifaceted; unnecessarily so, sometimes. It’s almost impossible for Tim to know if his own actions, even his potential victories, factor into them. Like playing a game of three dimensional chess with a constantly-changing set of rules and an unknowable win condition.

In the end, that’s the thing about this – it doesn’t  _matter_  if Tim thinks he knows Ra’s angle.

Or if this even  _is_ Ra’s’ angle. It’s going to be a trap either way, and at this point Tim is so far in that, no matter how fast he runs, the weight of Ra’s’ scheming is going to crush him like an animal caught in a deadfall.

Tim knows this. Ra’s  _knows_  that he knows this, and he’s probably planning accordingly.

So Tim is left with two options. He can take the offer and open himself to further manipulation, or he can go his own way and potentially do something worse. Start killing people, maybe, like Jason did when he first came back from the Pit.

When it comes down to it, that isn’t a choice at all. Tim is stuck right where Ra’s wants him, and there is  _nothing_ he can do about it.

Ra’s, the bastard, just smiles. Sweet and beatific in a way that really doesn’t work with his face or anything that Tim knows about him.

Tim wants to wipe the smugness off him. Preferably with his fist.

As if sensing his intention, the ninja guards shift in their sentry positions, getting ready to restrain him if possible.

And –

Faced with a fight and the inevitability of an impossible choice, Tim is suddenly feeling limp – loose and verging on the edge of control, just like Ra’s claims.

He sucks in a sharp, worried breath as the world tinges green.

His periphery nearly drowns in it, the color threatening to wash across him.

An unstoppable force against the less-than unmovable object Tim had turned out to be no matter how much Bruce trained him.

His breaths start to come in harsh bursts.

They tear through his lungs like sandpaper and –

There is a hand on his forehead, its thumb pressed right at its center.

Another hand grips his shoulder, holding him still.

The pressure is… odd. It feels deeper than his skin and nerves, somehow.

Without warning, the green recedes, draining away like water through a sieve. Easily. Quickly. Tim didn’t even do anything.

_What the fuck…_

“There is no need for that,” Ra’s says from where he stands in front of Tim, thumb to his forehead, hand digging into his shoulder. Tim looks up, confused. Wary. Ra’s hums noncommittally like whatever the fuck he did didn’t just  _stop a Lazarus episode in its tracks._

“There  _are_  ways of controlling it, Timothy,” he says, measured and so,  _so_  smug. “Did you not know? Yet another failing of your former mentor, I suppose. For all his posturing, he had only a fraction of my knowledge and resources. Furthermore, his experience with your… affliction was negligible. Unless you count locking Jason Todd away in Arkham Asylum rather than attempting to treat him.”

Ra’s tuts, miming concern.

“Just think of all the trouble he could have avoided; all the  _death_  that would never have happened had he simply known the  _right_  way to go about addressing such a malady.”

Tim only glares. He wants to say something, to argue with Ra’s or to rip his logic to shreds.  _Anything_  but the words caught behind his teeth that are going to rip their way out of him if he so much as opens his mouth.

“Allow  _me_  to instruct you,” Ra’s continues, his smirk sunk down into something more sedate. Disturbingly friendly, almost. He hasn’t moved his hands, but Tim refuses to go cross-eyed trying to glare at where Ra’s’ thumb is still pressing into his forehead.

“Bruce Wayne understood the importance of internal balance, of focus, in controlling one’s instincts. Yet his teachings on meditation and mastery of the self are but an echo of mine; the shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave, if you will.”

Tim scoffs. “You think you’re the keeper of some truer reality, Ra’s? Bullshit. The League is just another cave, but you’re the one holding the – ” Ra’s’ thumb presses incrementally harder. Tim blinks rapidly, trying to clear his head, “– the fire,” he finishes, anticlimactically.

“I will not deny that,” Ra’s says, though it lacks anything even resembling contrition, “but do all men not hold fire of one sort or another and only project the reality of themselves that they wish others to see? On this charge, you, too, are guilty. As was your mentor, and anyone else who hides behind their so-called ‘secret identities.’”

There is – there is a flaw in that logic, but Tim’s synapses aren’t firing fast enough to find it.  Which is worrying. Very worrying. Tim should be worried.

“Stop that,” he says, squinting up at Ra’s.

The bastard laughs beneath his breath, but withdraws the hand on Tim’s forehead regardless.

The world snaps back into place like an overextended rubber band; quickly and painfully. Everything feels like it’s tilting

“The  _fuck_ ,” Tim snarls, “was  _that?_ ”

“A method of suppression, if you will. Any more than that, and we would have to discuss it over tea. Preferably  _away_  from those who are trying to heal.”

Tim sneaks a glance at the child on the table opposite him. Still breathing, if the heart rate monitor’s readings are anything to go by, but from this angle he can see enough blood bags set up to indicate a transfusion of truly worrying proportions.

What did he  _do?_

“The choice is yours, of course,” Ra’s continues, turning away from Tim and towards the exit. “But I am sure more than a few would be grateful if you made your decision… quickly.”

And with that, he walks away, not even bothering to pick up the discarded medical supplies. But, why would he. Tim had somehow managed to forget it was Ra’s al  _fucking_ Ghul he was talking to. Ostensibly, the only one that can help him through this. For an unknown and highly questionable value of ‘help,’ Tim is sure.

He looks once more at the child, at the blood bags and the thick, white bandages wrapped in too many places for Tim to think about.

“Wait,” Tim whispers, so quietly he’s sure no one would hear it.

Ra’s stops all the same. He doesn’t say anything, and his expression stays as neutral as neutral gets, but Tim can  _see_  the smirk in the cold, calculated way that he turns to face Tim once more.

And this –  _this_  is a bad idea.

“Fine.” Tim hisses. “ _Teach_  me.”

Ra’s pauses a moment, as if in contemplation. Then he raises a single hand, outstretched. The other remains folded behind his back.

Tim heaves himself off the operating table, waving Pru away when she steps forward to help. He  _does_  take the shirt that she hands him, though. It’s more of a hoodie, really, and he has no idea where she found it but it’s soft when he slips it over his head.

He crosses the room slowly, ignoring the hand as he brushes past Ra’s and up the stairs.

In the last second before Ra’s passes out of Tim’s field of view, the smile works its way up from his posture to flash across his face. It’s only a glimpse, but what Tim sees is nearly Cheshire; cold and wide and predatory.

A shiver sends ice slithering up Tim’s spine, but he keeps walking.

No going back.

 

**…**

It’s not that Jason isn’t allowed in Wayne Tower.

He has access to penthouse when Alfred is there to supervise. He can be in the Bunker when Dick is there to supervise. And the ongoing nature of their coordination means that Jason is sticking close to the rest of them for once, and Dick tells himself that _is_ a good thing.

It’s just that, well.

“Are you tellin’ me you don’t have any bread? At all?” Jason asks, shoulders-deep in the kitchen’s cabinets and kneeling on the counter to get there, even though he’s taller than Dick and there is absolutely nothing stopping him from reaching the shelves normally.

“You’re fuckin’ billionaires. Why the fuck don’t you have bread,” he says, though it’s a bit muffled by the barrier of dark wood and a not insignificant number of cereal boxes.

“A protein rich diet is better for –”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,  _Mom_. Still doesn’t answer the question, Birdbrain.”

Alfred is, in fact, not here to supervise. And Dick would feel horrible if he called him for damage control so late at night…

No, he can handle this on his own. Probably.

Dick sighs.

“Three cabinets to your right, second shelf.”

If they weren’t out of bread before, they’re about to be. But it’s a price Dick is willing to pay so that he doesn’t have to deal with this at this time of night.

Jason shuffles across the counter – still balanced on his knees like an overgrown child with a distressingly intimate understanding of firearms – to the new cabinet, and maneuvers so he can open it without hitting himself in the face.

If Dick almost wishes he would, Jason doesn’t need to know.

“Hah! You’ve been holdin’ out on me, Big Wing,” he says, pulling out an unsliced loaf of what looks like the artisan sourdough Damian insists on buying. He starts telling Jason as much, but the man just peels back the loose, plastic covering and bites into it.

He tears a chunk out of it like he has a death wish.

Dick shudders. He’s been spending way too much time around Jason if he’s started using his ridiculous brand of – this time, Dick valiantly does  _not_  wince – gallows humor. But, unlike certain bread thieves who shall not be named, he knows a losing battle when he sees one.

Without another word, Dick steps out of the kitchen and leaves Jason to his imminent demise.

Aside from the fluorescent light slanting out of the kitchen doorway, the Penthouse is dim. Night lies heavily on the living room furniture, sharpening the angles and dying the already sedate colors dark.

It’s too high up for the lights of neighboring buildings to be seen through the windows, but the sickly, orange light pollution reflecting off Gotham’s omnipresent smog is just bright enough to keep him from needing to navigate by touch alone.

Not that he doesn’t know every inch of this place well enough to traverse it blind, high on blood loss,  _and_  dosed with fear toxin after smashing through one of the windows.

Alfred had been less than pleased with him for that one.

He takes more care than usual to muffle his footsteps, passing silently across the main sitting room to the stairs leading to the second level. He weaves around the steps that squeak – purposefully, of course. People with as much money as Bruce never really need to suffer such  _indignities_  as small maintenance issues – and emerges in the upper hall without making a sound.

It stretches down in a straight, dark line, with the doors of two rooms and various closets lining the walls up until to the master bedroom at the end.

It was Bruce’s once, if he’d ever needed to stay here, but Dick doesn’t go that far. Instead, he stops in front of the first door on his right, pausing for just a moment to broadcast his intention. Though he had come up the stairs silently, there’s little doubt the kid already  _knows_  he’s here.

It’s a skill you learn early, as Robin, though Damian had come to them with the habit of listening to his surroundings already firmly ingrained. There isn’t really such a thing as  _too early_  in this line of work, but that doesn’t stop Dick from wishing the kid hadn’t been born into a situation that had made it necessary.  

He gives it a count of five before going to knock, and his knuckles are nearly at the door’s dark wood when he hears the quiet, muffled, “enter,” from the other side.

Dick doesn’t waste any time. The knob turns easily – already unlocked – and the door opens quietly on well-oiled hinges. It isn’t quite frustration that rushes his movements so much as discomfort with the thought that he hasn’t seen one his brothers in a significant amount of time – especially with the part that his distance had played in Tim going missing.

“You’ve been up here forever, Dami. What have you – ” Dick starts, stops, blinks. He doesn’t get more than a step inside before he sees it. Them.

It’s longer than he’d like to admit before he really understands what he’s seeing.

On the bed pushed up against the back wall, Damian sits curled up with Titus, a sketchbook in his hand and headphones over his ears. He doesn’t look up, but that’s pretty normal. The rest of the room… isn’t. At first it just looks like a mish-mash of colors. Chaotic, but ordered in a way that Dick has never really been able to replicate on canvas.

Paintings, he realizes, are leaned are scattered across the room in various states of finished. The walls are covered in papers. Drawings, upon closer inspection. He sees simple pencil sketches layered over pieces with dark, inked lines. In some places, he can barely see the wallpaper beneath papers covered in pastels, charcoals, and other mediums that Dick can’t name off the top of his head.

Every holiday, even the ones Dick only declares are important because  _someone_  needs to make them take breaks, he gets Damian an amount of art supplies that would make his younger self balk.

He rarely sees what they’re used for.

Dick closes the door behind him, careful to make as little sound as possible and avoid alerting the rest of the Penthouse; this doesn’t seem like the sort of thing Damian would want Jason to see.

He crosses the room and puts a hand on the back of the chair sitting crookedly at Damian’s desk, waiting for him to nod his permission. He doesn’t bother turning it; he just drags the chair closer to the bed and straddles it, earning a raised eyebrow from Damian when he props his crossed arms on the backrest.

“You’ve been busy,” he says, going for casual.

Damian just grunts and continues sketching. The headphones don’t budge.

“Do you want to… talk? About it?” Dick tries, leaning forward until his chest is pressed against the back of the chair. Damian looks up, then back down. It doesn’t seem quite like he’s ignoring Dick so much as he’s waiting for a break in his thought process to acknowledge him further, so Dick settles in.

The room is relatively warm and the light is soft. If this goes on too long, he might even get a nap in before any more serious discussions.

He’ll need it. This isn’t the kind of subject matter that can be anything but sobering; even without knowing what Nanda Parbat looks like, the sketches have that distinctive architecture that screams  _Ra’s was here_  at the top of their lungs.

With a megaphone.

One of the more complete paintings sits in the corner, discarded and shoved behind a smaller piece depicting a beautiful sunset over snow-covered mountaintops. The half-hidden painting is green, luridly so, and leaves little doubt about the subject depicted. Dick turns his head, not wanting to look too closely. If Jason  _does_ come up here, they’re going to need to find a better hiding place for that one.

Eventually, Damian finishes his sketch. He places the book neatly at the end of the bed, within his reach but too far away from Titus for the giant dog to consider licking it.

The pencil goes flying at Dick’s head, and he catches it on reflex alone.

At least it isn’t a knife, this time.

“Tt. I see your reflexes remain adequate, Grayson, despite your insistence on  _free time_.”

Dick nearly smiles at that, but he hides it under a cough just in time. They’re a long way past Damian actively resisting time off to draw, and Dick is about ninety percent certain he only does things like this to save face.

It’s adorable. Post-fake cough, he’s still visibly smiling. Damian goes red.

“Grayson!” He shouts, throwing another pencil. Dick dodges this one rather than catching it and when he rights himself he has to graduate from fake-coughing to fake-throat clearing to get his face back under control.

“Yes?”

“It is nothing,” Damian grumbles, crossing his arms. Titus seems to take that as some sort of sign, since he rolls over on the bed and whines until Damian gives in and scratches his stomach hard enough that Titus’ tongue lolls out of his mouth.

How two people as uptight as Bruce and  _Talia al Ghul_  managed to fit that much hair-trigger violence  _and_  that much adorableness into one tiny vigilante, Dick will never know. What he  _does_ know is that Damian would probably kill him on the spot if he ever vocalized any of that.

Dick would like to keep living just a little longer, but the thought  _is_  tempting.

For a while, the room lapses into a comfortable silence interrupted only by the occasional quiet  _woof_  from Titus. Downstairs, somewhere, Jason is eating his way to a maiming via his violation of Damian’s personal bread stash. In an entirely different section of the Penthouse, Alfred is getting some much-deserved sleep.

It’s peaceful, or about as close to it as they ever get.

But the picture isn’t complete. The empty spaces gape wide in the back of Dick’s mind like an itch he just can’t seem to scratch. Or one that he can’t to find, in this case.

Bruce is either dead or lost in time. Tim is either dead or imprisoned. And Dick isn’t sure which problem is going to be more complicated to solve, or if it’s even going to be  _possible_  to get them back.

But he has to  _try_.

“Damian…” Dick starts, but he trails off at the expression Damian has leveled at him. Dick has seen all the amazing things Damian can do when he’s at his best and weathered everything the kid had to throw at him when he was at his worst, but  _this_  particular face is just left of recognizable. He doesn’t know what to make of it.

“When I said I would follow you,” Damian starts, caution darkening his words, “I meant it. Even though the mere thought is idiotic and Drake doesn’t deserve the effort.”

“ _Dami_ – ” The warning is obvious in Dick’s tone, but Damian presses on.

“ _Despite this_ , it is important to you. And, though I stand by what I said, that is enough.” He pauses, moving his hand from where it’s smoothing down the fur of Titus’ stomach to scratch behind the dog’s ear. “This is what I remember.”

He nods to the papers and paintings covering the room. There are too many for Dick to take in all at once.

“It isn’t much,” Damian continues, “and it’s far from concrete, but any detail we can be aware of ahead of time will be important as this is, in essence, a suicide mission.” He holds up a hand, halting Dick’s objection before he can even vocalize it. “Do not deny it, you have dealt with my grandfather before. Even you are not foolish enough to think that confronting him in the seat of his power will be  _easy_.”

There isn’t a lot Dick can say to that, so instead he looks once more at Damian’s memories, transcribed in ink and paint. The layout of the city seems straightforward enough, though the few detailed scenes are seemingly disconnected. They tell him something about the types of buildings present, the level of difficulty they might have in scaling them, and the lack of cover in the interiors that Damian could recall. It’s a start.

“What about Talia?” Dick asks, eventually.

Damian sighs. “Mother was… less than helpful. She shares my reservations about Drake, and if she knows anything we do not, she will not admit to it. Though she would say nothing of it, her demeanor suggested that Nanda Parbat remains his most likely location, assuming, of course, that you are still refusing to accept the inevitable.”

“ _Damian_ ,” Dick admonishes, “You have to admit that there’s at least a  _chance_ …”

“No,” Damian cuts him off, “I don’t. Unlike Drake – or you,  _apparently_  – I do not make a habit of clinging to false hope. But it is more than that. Even if Drake  _is_  alive… you may have faced my grandfather in battle, but you do not know him like I do. You have beaten him before, but this does not mean you will do so again. To think otherwise is complacency.”

Damian’s hand stills mid-scratch, and Titus whines at the interruption. Damian doesn’t seem to notice, and even though his expression is tightly controlled, Dick can sense something disquieted beneath it.  

“I do not claim know his plans for Drake, or pretend to understand why he would bother to have any in the first place, but from what my mother implied about their dealings in the last year… this is important to him. She believes it is driving him to the point of distraction, even, and I do not have to tell you that my grandfather is not a man led easily by whim. Whatever he is planning, I suspect he will not rest until he has accomplished it. And if Drake truly is alive, he is likely – albeit  _inexplicably_ – at the center of it.”

That… bodes ill. But what about this situation doesn’t? There are too many variables and too many dead ends for Dick’s comfort. He wants to be out there searching, and that itch beneath his skin demands action, even when there isn’t anything he can  _do_.

Without a remembered location from Damian, they have to wait for their lead to resurface.

He’s sure that if Bruce had seen how the three of them managed to lose a target  _with an injured leg_ , he would fire them all on the spot.

With the assassin long gone, it’s become a waiting game; coincidentally, this is Dick’s  _least_  favorite type of game, despite Bruce’s best efforts. In all his years of raising Robins, Bruce had drilled it into them that patience is not only the hardest part of the job, but that it is also the most important. This isn’t acrobatics or combat or even detective work; it doesn’t come naturally to Dick, even now that  _he’s_ the one passing on Bruce’s lessons.

Patience and calm, calculated analysis were always Tim things, for all that the rest of them are proficient. But Tim isn’t here, even if Dick would give almost anything for it to be otherwise.

_Too little, too late,_  the darker corners of his mind whisper to themselves. The thought echoes.

When Dick finally looks back to Damian, he’s returned his attention to Titus. Alfred would likely have something to say about the dog’s extended presence on the bed, but Dick isn’t about to tell Damian what he can and can’t do with his pets.

“Ok,” Dick says, standing up from the chair and pushing it back into place, “we can talk about it more in the morning. And take some time to go over all… this.” He glances around the room, taking a final look just in case anything jumps out at him. Disappointingly, nothing does, but he hadn’t really been expecting it to.

“As you wish,” Damian mutters, more absorbed in seeing how fast he can get Titus to wag his tail by scratching his stomach.

“Goodnight, Dami,” he says, walking to the door as he fights to keep another smile off his face. Honestly, it’s a miracle Damian doesn’t throw anything else at him for how poorly Dick hides his affection.

“Goodnight, Grayson. Please do not forget to sleep.”

Dick nearly scoffs at that. Replacing sleeping with time spent brooding is practically in the job description. But he’ll try, if only to set a better example than Bruce.

The door closes behind him, and he steps out into the hall to resume the quiet progression of steps leading to the room that never feels like his.

Closets aside, there is only one more door between the stairs and Dick’s final destination. It sits on the left of his, quiet and sullen in a way that is more reflective of what the room is missing than the room itself.

He normally doesn’t even let himself look at it, much less stop in front of it and stare at the dark, innocuous door. But tonight, on a whim, he opens it.

The inside is still empty; blank as the day they closed off the Batcave in favor of the Penthouse. Immaculate sheets are folded to military precision beneath a mountain of pillows. The dresser and nightstands are dust-free, but lacking any personal effects. As is the rest of the room.

It’s a guest bedroom, technically, though its original conceptualization of the room had always been something more permanent.

A place for Tim, when he satisfied his curiosity and outran his anger. When he returned to them to stay, where he belonged. Back before Dick had started wondering if the ‘when’ in that thought should really have been an ‘if.’

He sits down on the bed, centering himself in the pool of moonlight pouring through the room’s window. His hands fidget of their own free will, smoothing invisible creases from the surrounding sheets.

Dick had never meant for this room to be empty, even in the grip of his own anger at Tim for leaving Gotham without a second word. Not one that Dick hadn’t forced out of him, in any case.

Their confrontation on the cliff haunts him, still, and after Tim was reported missing, the nightmares replaying it in gruesome detail had come back in full force.

Just another reason to avoid the room at the end of the hall, to avoid sleeping in Bruce’s bed, beneath Bruce’s blankets and wondering if Tim had been right the whole time. If the evidence on Tim’s flash drive is accurate, if Dick had been  _wrong_  about Bruce being dead and all of this had been for nothing.

Dick would gladly eat crow if it meant Tim would come back, but something tells him it’s too far gone for that, now. Maybe it has been for a while, ever since he’d made Damian Robin and let Tim leave.

Gain a Robin, lose a Robin. Isn’t that how this always seems to work?

Time passes, but Dick barely takes notice. The hours stretch long and late, carving tension into his contemplation.

It’s almost morning by the time he finally picks himself up from the bed and shuffles down the hall for whatever fitful sleep is left to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some trigger warnings that may be considered spoilers:
> 
> ...  
> ...  
> ...  
> ...
> 
> \- somewhat graphic descriptions of injuries after the fact (burn victim, dismemberment, near-eviceration)  
> \- ambiguous gaslighting
> 
> ...
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you once more to artificiallifecreator for the beta! All remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> ...
> 
> So, about two chapters into this, I ended picking an arbitrary benchmark of about ten thousand words per chapter. Sometimes I have some difficulty reaching this number, but this was definitely not one of those chapters. So, here you go, Deadfall Chapter 7 in all its near-15K glory. 
> 
> This took fucking forever lol.
> 
> Also, another note on continuity. While I realize that before the Red Robin run, Steph was revealed to not actually be dead, I’ve messed around with the timeline a bit (again) for over-dramatic reasons. So, for Deadfall’s purposes, Steph is at the point in continuity where Leslie Thompkins helped her fake her death and is still hiding out in Africa. Tim doesn’t know this - he still thinks she actually died as Robin after being tortured by Black Mask in War Games. Since, as far as the Lazarus Pit is concerned, perception is reality, Tim’s ghost-vision-things assume she is actually dead and use this against him.
> 
> As always, you can find me on [tumblr](https://vellaphoria.tumblr.com/) if you want to help me scream about vigilantes making Bad™ life choices.
> 
> Edit 8/21/18 - now with awesome [art](https://khachalala.tumblr.com/post/177099055272/another-fan-art-for-deadfall-by-vellaphoria) by the fantastically talented khachalala! :D


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